


G. I. Joe - Cause and Effect - Book Two

by kurthoppe1973



Series: Cause And Effect [2]
Category: G.I. Joe - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-22 12:07:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 25
Words: 319,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8285311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurthoppe1973/pseuds/kurthoppe1973





	1. Book Two Prologue / Assassination in the Big Apple

"Cause and Effect" Book 2

Prologue

 

United States Senate Chambers

The Capitol, Washington, DC

April 29, 2002

 

The Vice-President of the United States, who also served as President, Pro-Tem of the U.S. Senate, rapped his gavel hard on the podium in front of him. He looked out at the one hundred Senators that comprised the senior lawmaking body in Congress. Quickly, the Vice-President raised his voice to call the monthly reporting meeting to order and quell the numerous side conversations that had begun as the legislators traded shop talk among themselves.

 

"Order!" the VP shouted, banging on his gavel. "This meeting is called to order!"

 

The talking in the main space of the chamber died out, as the Senators took their seats and settled in, with documents and pens in hand. Members of each Senator's entourage scurried around the room, delivering last minute telephone messages and pouring glasses of water for their respective bosses.

 

"Thank you for arriving so promptly today," the VP began. "I hereby declare this meeting to be in session. Sergeant-at-Arms, please secure the doors and escort all non-voting parties to the observation gallery."

 

Another minor display of movements around the chamber's periphery signaled the official closing of the meeting to outsiders. The entry doors clicked shut, and the remaining press photographers and reporters were patiently hustled away to the Press Corps Waiting Room or the observation gallery one floor above. Only a handful of unobtrusive television personnel, manning three live broadcast cameras for C-SPAN, remained among the Senators.

 

"Fortunately, we have only one committee report to hear for this meeting's agenda," the VP stated. "The floor recognizes Senator Charles McLaughlin of New York State."

 

Senator Charles McLaughlin stretched his muscles as he brought his six foot, two inch frame out of his chair among the senior Senate Democrats. As the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, his job was to provide oversight for the many organizations and elements that comprised the Department of Defense, including approving funding for all aspects of the American military.

 

Because the Armed Services Committee had authority over almost a trillion dollars' worth of Federal funds, leadership had to be entrusted to a senior Senator. McLaughlin was already into his second term in New York, and had been a friend to the military. He was a hands-on leader, making time to send commissions out on inspection tours and evaluations of the performance of Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine units worldwide.

 

When McLaughlin reached the speaker's podium, the Vice-President stepped to one side and took a chair. The NY Senator cleared his throat for a moment, and set his notes down, preparing to speak.

 

"Good morning, Mister Vice-President, and fellow Senators," McLaughlin began. "It is a pleasure to be reporting to you today concerning one very important issue that faces our military: the fight against international terrorism."

 

"Recent events, which I won't re-state since we are all aware of them, have made it necessary to re-think how America combats the threat of terrorism, and how to prevent future attacks from happening within our sovereign frontiers. To that end, our Committee, in joint resolutions with the House Armed Services Committee, fully approved the budget that General Gibbs and Major General Abernathy submitted for Special Operations Counter-Terrorist Force Delta, more commonly known as G. I. Joe."

 

"We have drafted a Special Appropriation, to be voted on in three months, which will include provisions for a discretionary spending budget of one hundred million dollars, spread out over the next four years, to supplement the G. I. Joe requested budget. Our counterparts in the House of Representatives are in full agreement."

 

McLaughlin raised a thick document, whose cover was emblazoned with the seal of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "My office is now distributing the details of the budget request and the Special Appropriation, for each of you to review prior to the vote that will come up in joint session on July 15th. You may contact my office to have any of your questions answered."

 

Some of the Senators buzzed with conversations for or against the funding request, and the small talk continued for a few moments, until the Vice-President used his gavel. "Order! Please bring the meeting back to order!"

 

"I have invited the commanding officer of the G. I. Joe Team to this meeting, to address you concerning the budget request," McLaughlin said. "I understand that the initial numbers that are being distributed in the finding are rather high, compared to previous budgets for this unit since its reinstatement in 2001. However, General Abernathy has convinced our Committee that support for his program is critical to the defense of our homeland."

 

McLaughlin extended his hand towards the center aisle of the Senate chamber, which looked very much like the larger, Congressional chamber that the public frequently saw on television, and motioned for his guest to come forward and take the floor.

 

Major General Clayton Abernathy, code name Tomahawk, approached the speaker's dais with a measured gait, his expression aloof to the applause of the assembled politicians. He briskly shook Senator McLaughlin's hand and greeted the Vice-President before standing up to the podium microphone.

 

"Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today, Senators," Tomahawk said. "And thank you all for supporting our efforts to redesign America's defense against terrorists."

 

"Creating the Department of Homeland Security was an important start in revolutionizing our capabilities to prevent the Pentagon and World Trade Center attacks on September 11th. Now, we need to continue that tempo with the full reinstatement of the G. I. Joe Team."

 

"I have endeavored in the last few months to return as much talent to duty as I could from my original team, prior to its first disbanding in 1995. These courageous men and women, including several from armed forces around the world, represent G. I. Joe's fighting edge. Of the ones I've located, several have been promoted or assigned responsible positions in the new organization, to help me keep G. I. Joe the best of America's best."

 

"To supplement our core group of veterans, I have recruited key personnel from the younger generation of soldiers. This new blood, forming our Green Shirt force of fighting men and women, will tackle the missions that our force is up against."

 

"Many of you might be unfamiliar with G. I. Joe as an entity. Our original charter was written through an executive order during the Kennedy administration in the 1960's. He was a staunch supporter of special operations and clandestine forces as a means to fight the new types of warfare. Every administration since has upheld the original order, which separates G. I. Joe from the mainstream military operationally, giving us free reign to accomplish our assignments. After some time, with international commitments on a conventional level growing, G. I. Joe slowly declined into a Europe-based training team until 1982."

 

"With the official re-raising of the team in eighty-two, and my being placed at its head, our charter was adjusted, making us report to certain generals in the Department of Defense and the office of the Commander-in-Chief. They also added a clause that gave G. I. Joe the right to circumvent the _posse comitatus_ law. This allows us to combat terrorist groups both domestically and abroad without interrupting our operations or capabilities to get government approval."

 

"Ever since 1982, G. I. Joe has been fighting a semi-covert war with a global terror group called Cobra. Even after your predecessors had declared victory against them in 1995, I am of the distinct opinion that Cobra has not died out. They may be smaller, and they might be working with the organizations that committed the attack on our shores. But believe you me, they are out there. And we don't want them getting a foothold here. Supporting the joint resolution, and getting as many of your friends in the House to do the same will ensure America's protection against these very bad people."

 

Most of the assembled Senators cheered Tomahawk's rousing speech; however, some only clapped respectfully, since they questioned the money or didn't necessarily believe what Tomahawk was saying about the re-emergence of Cobra. Tomahawk thanked the assembly for their time, and stepped away from the podium to shake hands a second time with Senator McLaughlin.

 

"Great speech, Clayton," McLaughlin said over the noise of the applause.

 

"I just hope it's enough to get the votes, Senator," Tomahawk replied. "You know, there's going to be a backlash, from both the political side and the Jugglers. I can still deploy a close protection team for you."

 

"It's okay, Clayton," McLaughlin said. "The DOA close protection team that's been assigned to me was trained by your former First Sergeant… Hauser, I believe? While he was working for the CIA?"

 

"Right," Tomahawk replied. "Then you shouldn't have a problem. Master Sergeant Hauser is back in the fold, getting the new force manned up and ready. All we need is the money to keep the program going."

 

"We'll get it for you, General," McLaughlin said. "You just worry about keeping your end of the bargain. Your people have the harder job."

 

"The Joes will be ready," Tomahawk replied. "You can count on us."

 

***

 

Level Five, E-Ring (Top Security Section)

The Pentagon

 

Armed guards stood a very careful watch over the inner working spaces of the Jugglers, the secret cabal of military leaders that often worked as a government within a government. They had the power and political leverage to make almost anything happen. They could also make or break anything from a single soldier's career to an entire covert combat unit.

 

General Gibbs, a four-star general ostensibly assigned to the senior administration of the Department of the Army, was also the power-hungry head of the secret junta. He was spending his morning at his desk, taking calls and going over a number of urgent files that required his attention or signature.

 

The door to his private office, which opened up to an anteroom where his secretary and chief of staff normally sat, was flung open accidentally by a flustered office assistant.

 

"I- I- I'm sorry, General Gibbs," the assistant stammered. "Someone is on your private line, screaming about something and demanding to talk to you."

 

"I'll take it, Constance," Gibbs said, dismissing the junior secretary and picking up the line on his desk phone.

 

"This is General Gibbs," the officer began in greeting.

 

"What the FUCK are you trying to do, Gibbs?" the voice on the other end of the line screamed. "You were supposed to quash the new budget request and keep the Joe Team as a really lean group. You're supposed to be using them as another budget line item so that we can funnel all that money into the slush funds!"

 

"Take it easy, Congressman," Gibbs growled. "The budgeting plan and stipulations were designed to do just that."

 

"Then why in God's name is Senator McLaughlin announcing a Special Appropriation that's being attached to the joint resolution? And, I've reviewed the language of the budget requirement. The Joes will be getting direct payments, outside of the usual Department of Defense oversight channels that we control!"

 

"Sometimes, you can be just too greedy, Congressman," Gibbs said. "However, this development is the first I've heard of an end-run around us. And I know who is probably behind it. General Abernathy and Senator McLaughlin have gotten very chummy over the topic of G. I. Joe. And a number of House members on the committees are behind them."

 

"What are YOU going to do about it, Gibbs?" the Congressman shouted.

 

"I am going to do nothing at all," Gibbs replied calmly. He opened a locked cabinet to extract a wireless PDA, that was connected to a special private line. "Not one thing. I have business to attend to, Congressman. I must go."

 

Before the Congressman could continue his tirade, Gibbs hung the telephone up and began to draft a message on the PDA. After completing the dispatch, he sent the e-mail and tucked away the PDA. Without missing a beat, Gibbs returned to his paperwork after taking a sip of his coffee.

 

***

 

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter One

Assassination in the Big Apple

 

Yankee Stadium, Grand Concourse, Bronx, New York

Summer, 2002

 

“Good afternoon, baseball fans, and welcome to Yankee Stadium! I’m Marty J. Riccardi, the new radio voice of the Bronx Bombers and your official greeter to the house that Babe Ruth built! We’ve got one helluva game in store for the fifty-five thousand plus visitors expected to join us here today! It’s the first game of this year’s New York Subway Series, with our hometown Yankees playing the cross-town rivals from Shea Stadium in Queens, the ‘Amazing’ New York Mets!”

 

Cheering crowds were filling the seats of the venerable old Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, just a half-hour ride by car from the U.S. Army Reserve’s base at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, home of the G.I. Joe team’s temporary New York staging facility. As the thousands of regular spectators began to occupy the cheaper seats, Master Sergeant Conrad S. “Duke” Hauser brought hot dogs and two large stadium cups full of beer from a concession stand to where his teammate and significant other, Staff Sergeant Shana M. “Scarlett” O’Hara, was waiting for him in a VIP sky box. As he stumbled up to her, Scarlett was quick to offer a giggle and a helping hand.

 

“Duke, I know we haven’t had much chance to go out on real dates lately, but dragging me to a baseball game really takes the cake this time as an excuse to get me alone with you. Why didn’t you invite Flint or Beach-Head, or one of the guys who actually likes this stuff?”

 

Duke smiled as he took his seat in the sky box and scanned the neighboring VIP accommodations. “Hawk gave me the tickets and expressly told me to bring you along before jetting off to Washington for Round Thirty-Five with the Jugglers. He was sort of evasive concerning exactly why, but there had to be some reason he wanted us here. Seats to these games are virtually impossible to get at the last minute, even for G.I. Joes, and to be in a VIP sky box no less... This took a lot of juice. I’m shocked that Hawk didn’t take advantage of this himself.”

 

Scarlett shrugged and smiled, as she looked out over the large cement and steel structure, and the forms of the two baseball teams’ players filing onto the field in their signature uniforms.

 

The announcer’s voice boomed across the open-air baseball stadium as the umpires and coaches slowly made their way onto the ball field and flags on tall poles reaching up to the clouds whipped in the wind as silent guardians of the sports venue. “We here at the New York Yankees would like to extend a special welcome to our VIP sky box spectators, including our very own New York Senator Charles McLaughlin, who is up from our nation’s capital to join us for this historic clash of New York’s boys of summer!”

 

Senator Charles McLaughlin, a Caucasian male in his early fifties, made his way into the sky box right next to the one Duke and Scarlett had been given when they arrived. The Senator had left much of his normal entourage behind for his visit to Yankee Stadium, trusting that the NYPD could handle security like the best of them.

 

He did, however, have his confidential secretary along, a voluptuous and busty brunette named Mandy Pepperidge that drew glances from men in many of the surrounding sky boxes. A single burly bodyguard kept the crush of visitors and media out of the sky box, standing outside of its privacy door and keeping it locked. Stewards and liaisons provided by the Yankees took up the slack for McLaughlin’s personal staff, bringing a deluge of refreshments and food to the couple, and attending to any of their other needs.

 

Scarlett looked across the short gap to McLaughlin’s sky box and regarded the pair as they settled into their seats. She noticed his secretary had gotten very comfortable as McLaughlin wrapped his arm around her. She leaned up to face him and within moments, their lips were locked together and she was quite obviously French-kissing him passionately.

 

Scarlett jabbed Duke in the ribs, nodding in the direction of McLaughlin’s sky box and remarking, “Hey, Duke. Isn’t it funny that Mrs. McLaughlin is nowhere to be found on this ‘homecoming’ trip for the Senator?”

 

Duke looked across and noticed that the secretary had slid off her chair and was on her knees in front of McLaughlin. The edge of the sky box obscured much of the view, but the secretary’s head was moving up and down in front of the Senator, and his look of absolute pleasure gave the whole game away.

 

“He doesn’t seem to mind being without her one bit,” Duke hissed with disgust. “That chippie of an assistant takes her job really seriously.” He turned to Scarlett and gave her a warm peck on the cheek as she picked up some binoculars to watch the game with. “But rank hath its privileges, n’est-ce pas?”

 

Scarlett nodded, returning Duke’s kiss with a brush across his lips with hers. “Absolute power corrupts, my dear,” she replied simply.

 

The announcer’s voice came up once more. “Ladies and Gentlemen, would you all please rise to sing our national anthem?”

 

The baseball teams took the field and lined up along the first and third base lines, with the Yankees facing their dugout and the Mets facing the visiting dugout. Before the first strains of music were ready to play, the pro ball players doffed their baseball caps and covered their hearts with them. As the stadium speakers echoed with the first few orchestral notes of The Star Spangled Banner, the entire population of Yankee Stadium came to their feet and began to sing. That is, all except one confidential secretary and her Senatorial benefactor.

 

Scarlett noticed that a slight smile was crossing Duke’s lips and his eyes were still fixed on the lip service the brunette secretary was giving to Senator McLaughlin. She jabbed him again in the ribs with her elbow, also burning her gaze into his eyes when he looked down at her. “You’re staring, Duke. Don’t let them notice you. And no, I will not perform the same to you out here while the game’s going on. That’s just the ultimate in couch-potato wishful thinking!”

 

Softening her voice and batting her eyelashes as Duke turned his attention back to her, Scarlett added, “... But you never know what we might do back at Fort Hamilton with you, me, a couch and our TV set.”

 

The announcer changed the main sound feed from his box high above the field to a radio used by the lead umpire at home plate and broadcast his instructions. “Okay, everyone, listen up! Players, take the field, and the Yankees starting lineup is up to bat! Let’s PLAY BALL!” Cheers arose from the stadium as the Subway Series kicked off with a roar.

 

***

 

Atop the roof of Yankee Stadium, a stealthy figure crept along its edge until he had a commanding view of the VIP sky boxes. He had entered using the identity of a maintenance man from Brooklyn who worked for the Yankees getting the field set up in between games.

 

The thirty-five year old maintenance man had met his maker more than twenty-four hours earlier, courtesy of the impostor’s silenced 9mm Makarov automatic. All it took was a simple knock at his apartment door near the old Brooklyn Army Terminal, two puffs as the pistol was fired point blank into the front of his skull, where the bullets penetrated the bone and smashed the frontal lobe of his brain, and then the deed was done. The Brooklynite’s lifeless body was left to lay right where it fell, as bits of blood and brains drained out onto the man’s apartment floor.

 

The ersatz maintenance man on the stadium roof had exchanged the workman’s coveralls, which he had been wearing when he entered the stadium, with a tight-fitting, one-piece, zippered combat suit colored in a black and dark green geometric camouflage pattern.

 

From a hidden panel at the bottom of the large toolbox that he had brought on site, he assembled the components of a small and highly accurized Anti-Materiel Rifle, much more than just any sniper’s rifle. The man’s AMR fired a subsonic 0.50-inch caliber (12.7mm) Browning round, originally designed for the much larger and long-serving Ma Deuce (M-2) heavy machine gun. It was capable of hitting targets at ranges of over half a mile, and penetrating hardened surfaces such as rolled steel armor plating, civilian cars, or poured concrete structures, to ensure a ‘hard kill’ on the intended victim.

 

Resting the AMR on its folding bipod atop the hot metal roof of the stadium and rolling out a thin foam sheet to dissipate the reflected summer heat so it wouldn’t scald his body while he lay prone, the sniper flipped down an integral range finder and telescope that was affixed to his lightweight headgear on a pair of hinges and settled onto his mat in a comfortable position.

 

Scanning the sky boxes with his specially shielded telescopic lens, the sniper was able to look through the many faces of the spectators for his quarry, without giving off a telltale reflection in the hot summer sunlight. He smiled to himself, as he settled on the Senator’s box, where the confidential secretary was still knelt between McLaughlin’s thighs and bobbing her head up and down. With a much better view of the action than any of the other patrons of the stadium, the sniper watched as the buxom assistant serviced her boss orally. The action was also the sniper’s signal to strike.

 

Raising his telescope visor and switching to the long-range scope on the AMR, the sniper sighted in on a spot right between the pinched-shut eyes of the Senator, as the infiltrator made his usual sniper’s preparations to fire. In seconds, he had ticked off the range, direction, elevation, prevailing winds and firing arc in his head that would hit the Senator in a single deadly head shot without taking out the girl between his knees.

 

***

 

Top of the first inning:

 

The first few pitches had been only marginally amusing for Duke as he watched the Mets’ star pitcher strike out the first two Yankee batters in a row. He peered through the binoculars in order to see the action up close and personal, while Scarlett yawned in the seat next to him and tried to enjoy the sun on her face and a stadium hot dog with the works.

 

The loud crack of a bat against a hardball aroused a cheer from the crowd as the third batter on the Yankee lineup scored a double and sprinted halfway around the baseball diamond. The cracking sound of the hit echoed all the way up to the stadium roof, where it temporarily distracted the sniper. But he never lost his fix on the Senator’s head.

 

The weather report for game day over the Bronx was clear skies and wispy clouds, but to the sniper, a simple change in the wind would ruin his single chance at completing his mission. So he decided to bide his time and let the game progress a bit before he determined that the conditions for the shot were optimal.

 

He pulled out a small, orange plastic flag on a wiry shaft and jammed it vertically into a small crack in the roof. It was very much like the small flags used around construction sites to mark buried power lines and the like. For the sniper, it was a reliable, low-tech solution to his windage problem, since he could tell at a glance if the moving air had changed.

 

The sniper knew he had time – no Senator in his right mind would decide to get up and bolt when he had a hot woman giving him oral pleasures during the middle of a baseball game. He re-checked his figures mentally at least twice more, almost cursing to himself when he thought he saw the plastic flag flap in a new direction. But the wind held its direction and speed, and the other conditions didn’t change.

 

Everything in life to a sniper centered around two things, stealth and the shot. Stealth was required because no sniper can surprise a target when he himself is making all manner of noise and confusion. And the shot was everything. All snipers that were worth their salt worked alone or with a spotter who was both bodyguard and assistant. Even the spotter was less important than the shot, since a spotter was often expendable or used as a decoy to keep an enemy away from the shooter.

 

“One shot, one kill,” echoed in the sniper’s mind as he began a series of slow breathing exercises to get the final calibration he needed between his body, his mind and the hair trigger of his AMR.

 

***

 

Bottom of the first inning:

 

Although the Yankees had two runners advance onto bases, they were unable to score due to a ballsy double play. The players hurriedly changed places as the Mets starting lineup came up to the home plate.

 

The Senator began to twist his face into odd contortions, probably because his secretary was bringing him to orgasm and he didn’t want to cry out. Eventually, his face muscles relaxed into a soft, satisfied grin as he let out a guttural moan of delight. The secretary silently moved her mouth away from Senator McLaughlin and spat disgustedly into a paper napkin, quickly wiping some excess spittle from around her face.

 

Her makeup had been smudged, and her lipstick needed some adjusting, so the secretary got to her feet and set about excusing herself for a much needed trip to the VIP restrooms on the uppermost level.

 

Although she and the sniper knew each other, for purposes of their own protection, neither had chosen to choreograph when and how the actual shot would occur. But to the sniper, her departing the sky box would make conditions for his shot optimal and he was going to take the opportunity to fire.

 

Smoothing her miniskirt and tight-fitting halter top, the secretary was moving to leave when the Senator grabbed onto her arm and turned her around. “You’re not done yet, are you, Mandy?” McLaughlin lecherously grinned at the secretary and slid his hand up her miniskirt. He pointed to his open fly, indicating he wanted to be pleasured in another way.

 

Mandy firmly pushed McLaughlin’s hand away from her butt and continued to walk towards the sky box’s privacy door. “Sorry, Chuck-baby; I have a headache, so that’s all you’re getting right now.” She gathered up her purse and small makeup bag and proceeded to exit the sky box.

 

Senator McLaughlin sighed as he raised a glass of wine to his lips. The thought, “Women, can’t figure them out,” crossed his mind as he glanced about his surroundings. He noticed the cheering fans everywhere, some looking distinctly in his direction, and didn’t seem to care whether they saw him getting his rocks off with Mandy or not.

 

Looking to his left, the Senator spotted a blond, well-muscled man peering down at the field through binoculars in the neighboring sky box, and his exceptionally gorgeous, redheaded girlfriend snoozing in her seat.

 

One of the Mets’ best hitters was at the plate with his bat at the ready, the end moving up and down slightly as it hung in the air over the batter’s right shoulder. The Yankee pitcher wound up and delivered a ‘two-knuckled’ fastball at over 85 miles an hour. Because of the way it was released, the ‘two-knuckle’ would fly straight and true, until its backwards spin caused it to lose momentum and drop from its straight path, hopefully just as the batter swung the bat to meet it. The Mets hitter swung and connected, letting out a loud crack as the wooden bat impacted at full speed with the solid core of the hardball and sent it flying up into the air and towards the outfield.

 

As the cheers of the Mets fans rose with the hit, Senator McLaughlin’s head exploded in a mass of blood, bone and brain matter. The sniper’s shot was off by a fraction of a millimeter for his angle and the bullet grazed the cement overhang of the row of sky boxes above the Senator’s level before it hit. The grazing only served to make the incoming bullet tumble in flight, rendering it about three times as damaging when it hit the Senator’s soft tissue and skull. The round went in right between the eyes and came out explosively through the base of his skull, taking McLaughlin’s life in that instant.

 

Everyone, including Duke and Scarlett, only heard the crack of the bat. The silencer on the AMR and the special subsonic powder charge made the shot virtually undetectable as it lanced through the air and into the Senator. But the sight of McLaughlin’s head exploding and the decapitated body sliding lifelessly to the floor of the sky box in Duke’s peripheral vision caught his attention immediately.

 

Accidentally jabbing Scarlett in one of her breasts with his elbow, Duke leaped to his feet and crouched behind the cement front wall of their sky box. He trained his glasses across the stadium and up, to see if he could identify a shooter.

 

Scarlett rubbed her chest with a pained look as she was shaken awake, and when she saw Duke crouched down and scanning, her own combat instincts took hold. “What the hell just happened?” she asked, promising herself to give Duke a painful jab when he wasn’t expecting one.

 

“Look to your right, Red. Someone up high just blew Senator McLaughlin’s head right off. It had to be a large-caliber weapon, like Low-Light’s Barrett Mark 84. I’ll bet the shooter’s up on the roof somewhere.”

 

Scarlett gathered up her handbag and made sure her military ID was handy. “I’ll grab a cop and spread the word. Maybe we can even scare up a weapon and shoot back.”

 

Scarlett ran out of their sky box and grabbed a convenient NYPD patrolman, brandishing her military ID. “Hey, you there, Police Officer! I’m Staff Sergeant O’Hara with the U.S. Army. There’s been a shooting! Get help on the radio and follow me!”

 

She led the bewildered, yet alert, young officer to the privacy door for the Senator’s sky box, where the bodyguard was stoically manning his post. Reaching the bodyguard, she tried to shove him out of the way and get the privacy door open. The large man didn’t budge, and the NYPD patrolman wasn’t really helping.

 

“Dammit, open this door up! The Senator’s been shot!” Scarlett pleaded as the bodyguard shook his head no.

 

The bodyguard looked at Scarlett like she was crazy, even though the white and green military ID was unmistakable. “The Senator’s been in there by himself since his secretary left for the bathroom. No one else entered. How are you sure he was shot?”

 

Scarlett gathered up more energy, hunched her shoulder and shoved the bodyguard aside and into a support column. “You fucking idiot! It was a sniper!” She felt that the bodyguard had a sidearm under his windbreaker, and she withdrew it with lightning speed. “Go see for yourselves!” Scarlett ran back to the sky box Duke was in as the bodyguard and police officer traded looks and then cautiously opened the privacy door to have a look.

 

Meanwhile, the sniper had retreated from the edge of the broad sloping stadium roof. He was far enough back down the slope that no one from the stands could see what he was up to. He shimmied back into the maintenance worker coveralls and broke down the AMR. Getting back into character, he worked his way down from the roof access through a closed side stairwell and down to the ground level.

 

Scarlett had returned to Duke’s side in the sky box, locking and loading the bodyguard’s Smith & Wesson Model 1076 10mm automatic. It was marked as a former FBI weapon that had been refurbished and sold in the civilian market, having been originally built without a magazine-connector safety feature for that agency. The civilian models could not be fired if the pistol’s magazine was removed, but the FBI weapons stayed hot. She pointed the former Bureau-issue weapon towards the opposite roof edge, and asked, “Spot anything yet, Duke?”

 

Duke shook his head no, and sighed. “I’ll bet the crafty bastard’s already making his escape. We need to lock this place down immediately.”

 

To the Joes’ right, the bodyguard and young patrolman finally barged into the sky box and halted immediately as their shoes made slurping sounds. They trod right through the blood and gore that was McLaughlin’s brain matter, and saw the limp, grossly twisted and headless body bent backwards across the sky box seats. The deceased Senator’s fly was still open and his recently-serviced, flaccid member hung out for all to see. Gasping with fear, the patrolman finally raised his radio to call downstairs to his security supervisor.

 

***

 

A cluster of NYPD officers assigned to crowd control and safety at Yankee Stadium stood by their patrol cars, drinking cans of soda and listening to the game inside with portable transistor radios. They didn’t mind not being able to go inside and watch the game, because the time and a half special duty pay could keep them in cold sodas and radio batteries for a long time.

 

Every NYPD officer’s handheld radio squawked at the same time when the alarm was sounded from Senator McLaughlin’s sky box. Every officer around the stadium quickly went into an alert mode, waiting for a supervisor to issue instructions.

 

From up in the sky box, Duke located the small folding cellular phone in his pocket and dialed a preprogrammed number. As soon as the greeting started and a beep came across the line, he yelled into the handset.

 

“This is Duke! Scramble all New York Joes immediately! Scarlett and I are at Yankee Stadium on the VIP level. Senator McLaughlin’s been murdered. Order all Joes to report to Yankee Stadium armed and ready to shut the place down and to do a physical security sweep for the sniper-assassin. Get your sorry asses mobilized YESTERDAY!”

 

The voice mail message was instantly transmitted to the Communications-Operations room, a small ten-foot by ten-foot room at Fort Hamilton where the Joes staged for their local missions. The duty controller heard Duke’s call, and sounded the general alarm to get every trooper he could find prepped and on the road to the Bronx.

 

***

 

A female NYPD officer in a Sergeant’s summer uniform of short-sleeved white shirt and blue trousers came out of the stadium’s security office and started barking out orders.

 

“This is an emergency lockdown situation! Call back to your team leaders and then to your precinct houses for all available backup! Contact the Bronx ESU platoon and the crime scene team and get them rolling ASAP! I’m going to get the maintenance man so we can lock off the stadium gates and form a security perimeter. No one leaves this stadium until an incident commander arrives and starts a security sweep!”

 

The NYPD Sergeant pointed to one of the patrol cars as she went to find the maintenance office. “Have that RMP running and the trunk popped when I get back! Move it!” The RMP driver fished out his keys and started the engine on the 2002 Chevy Malibu ‘Radio Motor Patrol’ car. He had the trunk raised seconds later, and stepped out of the car to await the Sergeant.

 

The female Sergeant entered the maintenance office cautiously, and felt an arm snake about her neck from behind. She could feel the hot breath of a man behind her and the musky scent of cheap aftershave on his coveralls as he smoothly pulled the automatic pistol from her hip holster and jammed it into the small of her back. “Don’t make a sound and you’ll be okay.” The voice was even and monotonous. “If you so much as twitch wrong, I’ll do you right now.”

 

The Sergeant’s voice changed from a typical New Yorker’s accent to her own natural one, that of an Irish or English woman with a hint of Cockney, a blending characteristic of her Australian heritage. “You know that it’s me, Bloodpool. It’s Zarana. Let me loose; we’re leaving right now.”

 

Bloodpool, the sniper, transferred everything that could be linked to the assassination into a large duffel bag or his false-bottomed tool box and then held the duffel open as Zarana stuffed her secretary’s disguise in with the gear. Bloodpool then gathered up the bags and followed Zarana out to the waiting RMP.

 

“Toss your stuff back there. We’re in a hurry,” Zarana said, returning to her New Yorker accent. As the RMP driver leaned over to climb into his car, Zarana grabbed his shoulder and turned him to the side. “You stay here and help with crowd control. The maintenance man and I will start locking the gates.” She turned to the other waiting cops, who were adjusting bullet-proof Kevlar vests and loading their police-issue automatic pistols. “Do any of you have an ETA from the CSU and ESU?”

 

One of the officers spoke up as Bloodpool got into the passenger’s seat of the running RMP. “Sarge, the Crime Scene Unit will be here to set up a cordon in the sky boxes in twenty minutes. There are a couple of Army types and the Senator’s bodyguard up there with one of ours keeping the place closed for now. The first responders from the Four-Truck Emergency Service Unit’s assault platoon will be here in five minutes. Adam Four-Three and a district deputy chief will be setting up the incident control point.”

 

Zarana climbed into the driver’s seat of the RMP and rolled down the window. “Very well. Secure the stadium itself for now and keep the crowds under control. When Adam Four-Three and the IC arrive, work your way out to the parking lot perimeter and close it down. We’re going to lock off as many gates as we can in the meantime.”

 

As the other NYPD officers milling around Zarana and Bloodpool nodded their understanding, Zarana turned on the RMP lights and sirens and roared off for the outer gates of Yankee Stadium. From there, they turned out onto the Grand Concourse, and by way of back streets and passable alleys, they got onto the Cross Bronx Expressway.

 

NYPD mobile units, RMP cars and specially outfitted pickups belonging to the city’s Bronx-based ESU SWAT platoon began converging on the stadium to seal it off, while Zarana drove their purloined Impala northwest towards Yonkers. They eventually abandoned the patrol car in a rest area on the New York Thruway just north of the city.

 

Zarana and Bloodpool had a legitimate car waiting for them in the service area parking lot, which they drove up to the sleepy town of Rhinebeck, along the Hudson River, to report their successful kill in to Cobra Commander and to await further mission instructions.


	2. Containment

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Two

Containment

 

Although Zarana and Bloodpool had made a clean getaway, the mission of the NYPD and by association, the Joes at Yankee Stadium, was the containment of the situation. Hoping that they reacted to the killing fast enough, the authorities managing the crisis anticipated that the sniper and any accomplices didn’t have enough time to leave when they tightened the dragnet around the stadium and clamped down the inner ring of security.

 

The NYPD response had been practiced over and over again by the thousands of field police officers on the force since September 11, 2001, after the Federal, State, New York Office of Emergency Management and Chief of Police directives had been issued requiring the ability to respond in full force to any terrorist action in the city.

 

The response team from Fort Hamilton of Joe team members simply served to provide more experts in a stadium full of them. The crowds were the authorities’ first concern. The game was allowed to continue for the solitary purpose of not arousing a panic among the civilians. Oddly enough, there was a stalemate on the field, as the Yankees and Mets tied the game 5-5 at the bottom of the ninth, and the management was considering playing extra innings to break the tie.

 

The sniper had done one thing to make the job of clearing the stadium easier. Hitting the Senator in a private sky box and while he was alone minimized the number of possible spectators to the murder and thus limiting the potential panic among the surrounding sports fans.

 

As in any sort of densely populated area where a crime occurs, the first job of the police department was to establish a central command post and form an impermeable perimeter, keeping the potential witnesses and perpetrators in, and outside elements out so they cannot contaminate the evidence or the crime scene.

 

After the NYPD’s ‘collapsing bag’ was established, then a slow and methodical search through the crowds had to occur while only releasing people after being ID checked and re-checked to the satisfaction of the Incident Commander.

 

Much of the ‘collapsing bag’ work was being accomplished in this case by the NYPD and the private security officers for Yankee Stadium, using physical barriers (like locking down many of the access gates and the parking lots) to ease the process of funneling all of the people through security checkpoints on their way out.

 

No announcements had been made to the general public, but it was up to the NYPD Incident Commander to decide how much information needed to be released. Thus far, there had been only four direct witnesses to the crime, and all were controllable. The incident commander considered that they might be able to explain off the funneling and exit delays as a security precaution because of the Senator’s presence and leave it at that.

 

For all of the press roaming the stadium at the time of the shooting, the NYPD got off lucky that admittance to the sky boxes was limited to begin with while the game was in progress. Most of the local pundits, reporters and photographers had been beaten off by McLaughlin’s bodyguard prior to the start of things. Once the Joe Team arrived, it was decided that they would keep the immediate area around the crime scene clear, backed up by the ESU SWAT platoon, while the NYPD CSU special units and coroner-forensics teams started their job.

 

***

 

Top of the Tenth Inning

 

Scarlett answered a knock on their sky box’s privacy door, to see a Navy officer in BDU’s waiting on the other side. Lieutenant Kurt “Crypto” Williams was a promising naval reserve officer from New Jersey recently recruited to the Joes, who worked for the moment out of Fort Hamilton as a Current Intelligence analyst.

 

Standing in a tight cluster behind the lieutenant was Colour Sergeant Mick “Walkabout” Bradenton, an exchange program trooper from the Australian Special Air Service, and Master Sergeant Lonzo “Stalker” Wilkinson, the long-serving Army Ranger who was an original member of the unit from its beginnings and the _de facto_ honcho of the ‘permanent’ New York detachment. Additional Joes of varying enlisted ranks were also present, already standing guard in the spacious concession and access hallway on the VIP sky box level.

 

“Come in, Crypto, Stalker and Walkabout. It’s good to see you guys,” Scarlett said, holding open the privacy door as the Joes entered. They were all armed to the teeth and ready for action, loaded down with ammunition bandoleers for their 5.56mm M-4A1 Colt carbines and packing loaded M-9 automatic pistols.

 

“We were given hell by the NYPD for trying to get in here fully armed when you called for us to come over from Fort Hamilton. We finally found out why when we showed off our G.I. Joe ID cards. What’s the situation?” Stalker asked matter-of-factly, as he raised his pair of binoculars skyward, tracing the edge of the stadium roof for any visible clues. “Did the stiff have any chance?”

 

“No chance at all, Stalker,” Duke said with a mumble of disgust. “It was a fucking sniper somewhere up high with a commanding view. He must have had something big like an elephant gun or Anti-Materiel Rifle, because the ex-Senator over there basically lost his head in an explosion of yummy stuff.”

 

“Ex-Senator?” Crypto asked with a gasp as he tried to look across to the neighboring sky box and saw the pattern of blood stains turning from a crimson red to a dry brown. “You mean to say someone off-ed a United States Senator in the middle of a ball game?”

 

“Senator Charles McLaughlin, Republican, from New York State is our resident victim,” Scarlett reported. “He’s the Assistant Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee and was to assume the leadership position for the next senatorial session starting in 2003.”

 

“Shit,” Crypto murmured as he tried to find something identifiable about the Senator from his vantage point. “He’s always been a friend to the Joe Team. I saw a speech he gave on C-SPAN about fully supporting the President’s mandate to improve our special operations and counter-terror capability for both forward operations and homeland defense. He’s a well-spoken and aggressive man who was butting heads with the Cabinet and his own committee members over their slowness to make the actual reforms take root.”

 

“Not any more he isn’t,” Duke added, coming to his feet and regarding the Joes around him. “The NYPD has their incident commander in play already, so we don’t have to worry much about those civilians downstairs. But I think we should work hand-in-hand with the NYPD Crime Scene Unit and the Coroner’s Office and funnel all the info we can collect on this to General Hawk in Washington. The ‘Tomahawk’ is going to be really interested in this, since he sent Scarlett and me to this specific game for some reason.”

 

“Knowing more about him and the potential political enemies sniffing at his heels might help give us insight into the why behind this killing,” Scarlett surmised, watching Duke nodding in agreement. “Barring an unknown element or some outside terrorist group making a surgical attack, some of the how’s of this scenario make it look like it had taken some careful planning, maybe with the help of an inside accomplice.”

 

Crypto agreed with Scarlett’s assessment, pulling out a notebook to jot down some bits and pieces of information for his edification. “Let me see what I can find out about this guy’s life. Hopefully when the word gets out to the FBI and such, we can work with the Senator’s bureaucracy and finesse the stuff we need to get workable leads.”

 

Stalker nodded at Walkabout and the burly Australian excused himself. “I’ll take charge of our security just outside, mates. We’ll make the perimeter tighter than a shorn sheep’s arse while the snoopers do the clean-up work. Shall I send in a few spinnakers for you while we wait this out?”

 

The Joes shook their heads in the negative as Walkabout opened the door and cradled his weapon, calling out to the assembled Joes in the open hallway space. He quickly had the troops interspersed with the NYPD’s Bronx-based ESU platoon as they gently re-routed any nosy patrons of the stadium away from the crime scene and off the VIP level.

 

***

 

1819 M Street NW, near Embassy Row, Washington DC: ‘Joanna’s 1819 Club’

Mid-Afternoon (1500 hours), the same day as Senator McLaughlin’s murder

 

The nude dancers at Joanna’s 1819 reviled working the after-lunch time period because business of late had been merely a trickle on the day shift. Since September 11th, the often flamboyant international clientele from the neighboring Embassy Row section chose not to leave their compounds as part of their own security protocols. They didn’t entertain each other to lunch and naked women as often as they used to, and the tips from the patrons who did come by were hardly enough to scoff at.

 

Politicians did frequent the club during the daytime hours, especially when they were trying to duck out of a critical vote for one party or another, or just because being at work was a convenient excuse to get a little jolly on the side. Then again, Joanna’s had a next door neighbor called the ‘Camelot Show Bar’ that got a goodly amount of the daytime crowd as well.

 

Senator Douglas Smithers of California ambled his way into the Joanna’s 1819, choosing to leave his usual entourage back at the office. He had told them he was off to a confidential meeting in the Old Executive Office Building, near the White House. His positions on the Committee for Fiscal Management and Senate Armed Services Committee often warranted that he attend hearings and meetings alone.

 

He was soon met by Representative Joseph ‘Joey’ Walsh, a counterpart of the Senator’s from northeastern New Jersey and a member of the House Budgetary Oversight Committee and deputy chair of the House Armed Services Committee.

 

The two politicians nodded at each other, as the heavy strains of rock and metal music played. Dancers fanned out both on stage and around the floor, swaying and jiggling their bodies and showing the handful of visitors their sex jewels.

 

Sitting at a long bench-like couch together, Senator Smithers smiled at a particularly buxom brunette and then spoke to the Congressman. “So, Joey, I guess you and I got the same idea today, huh?”

 

Congressman Walsh nodded. “The wife’s gone home to Ridgewood for the week, so I’ve little better to do. Hopefully one of these beauties will be up to polishing my knob for an hour or two before the big vote.”

 

“The big vote? Which one are you talking about?” Smithers asked.

 

“HR 3709.1, Doug,” Joey replied. “It’s been proposed and signed off by both my committees. It authorizes measures under the Department of Homeland Defense to provide funds for additional support to the counter-terrorist unit G.I. Joe, over at Wright-Patterson AFB. Governor Ridge wants to rewrite their mobile strike force charter and make them the ‘first call’ military arm of Homeland Defense. The resolution goes before all of the House of Representatives today and the President tomorrow.”

 

Smithers nodded, as a dancer rested her bare behind on his lap and gave him a sultry lap dance. “Senate bill 228 is our copy of that measure. We’ve already passed it, but I wanted to place attachments that authorize discretionary funding from all over the armed forces and priority authorization for any program offices that are developing weapons and equipment for Homeland Defense to get supplementary money.”

 

Congressman Walsh shook his head. “That sounds like too much in one hit. I know the President will buy in, but what’s stopping the opposition and their Armed Forces toadies the ‘Jugglers’ from starting a filibuster and bringing the whole house of cards down on our shoulders?”

 

“There’s always that risk, Joey,” Smithers responded. “But we must continue our unwavering support for the Joes. The Jugglers already have a lot of power and influence in the Senate. The vote was close, and it cost a lot of political capital from the supporters and the President to keep the votes we needed.” Smithers tipped the lap dancer with a twenty dollar bill and then adjusted himself. “I need to go use the head, Joey. I’ll be right back.”

 

A dancer was now atop Congressman Walsh’s lap, and had teasingly pulled down the zipper of his trousers with her teeth before she began grinding her hips against him. She was whispering about the upstairs lounge, normally closed during daylight hours, where they could have a little friendly discussion over politics. He was all too happy to accept her offer for later, after he ditched Senator Smithers.

 

While Smithers explored the club in search of the men’s room, another patron in a long trench coat tried to take his seat. The man was dressed in a typical business suit and had rolled up the trench coat to set it at his side. “Afternoon, there,” the man said in the Congressman’s direction. “Think there might be rain later today?”

 

Joey shook his head as the dancer’s thighs clamped around his waist. “Sorry, guy. That seat’s taken. My colleague is in the men’s room. But I’ll tell you, it’s going to stay as dry as a bone out there and hot as hell. You’d be wise to leave the coat at home.”

 

The man palmed a thick envelope out of the pocket of his trench coat and slipped it firmly between the cushions of the couch, out of everyone’s sight, stood up and thanked the Congressman. He ambled away, slipping a ten-spot into the g-string of a passing dancer and giving her a playful slap on the tail. He quietly turned into the club’s side hallway and slipped upstairs.

 

Smithers returned to the couch and sat back down next to Walsh. “Did I miss anything?”

 

“Not a thing, except for all these beautiful women walking around.” The dancer atop Walsh’s lap giggled and kissed his forehead. “I think I’m going to excuse myself for a while, Doug. I need to collect my thoughts before I speak to the House about the vote. I’ll see you at the Capitol later.” Walsh got to his feet and took his dancer by the hand to lead her to the empty upstairs lounge.

 

Smithers waved a fifty at a sexy blonde who approached him hungrily to offer a lap dance. “I’ll be fine right here,” he mumbled as he eyed her jiggling breasts lecherously.

 

***

 

1535 hours

 

The intruding man in the business suit briskly exited the club and crossed M Street to a vacant three-story building on the opposite side that had placards of city condemnation orders on the doors. Quickly shoving past the rickety entrance, he climbed the stairs to the roof where a second man waited.

 

“Scrap-Iron,” the suited man said from behind his dark sunglasses. “The incendiary on the ground floor is set, and I think one of our targets is going to turn up on the second floor soon. He’ll be your job to polish off. All of the exits have been jammed.”

 

Scrap-Iron, dressed in a civilian sweat suit, set down a set of thermal image intensifiers and looked at the suited man, as he traded his designer three-piece for a more utilitarian urban camouflage jumpsuit. “I’ll be ready for the guy up top, Firefly. I have a high explosive wedding gift for him and his dancer friend.” The missile specialist then held up a thin tube and pulled out its tail piece. The 66mm M-72 LAW he was readying was perfect for the task at hand.

 

Firefly, Cobra’s demolitions expert and the man who planted the bomb in Joanna’s 1819, picked up a remote detonator and powered it up. “Did anyone say we had to wait for a specific hour, Scrap-Iron?”

 

Scrap-Iron shook his head eagerly, and a sadistic smile crossed his lips. “Let’s let ‘Mister hot-in-the-crotch Congressman’ bring his girl upstairs to do the deed and then we can make the real fun begin.” Firefly nodded his agreement and crouched on the edge of the roof to watch the club through binoculars.

 

***

 

1545 hours

 

Senator Smithers was eagerly watching his dancer earn the fifty spot he had offered, as she had his erect member out of his pants and was rubbing it between her breasts to get him more excited. He leaned his head back to utter a deep moan of pleasure when he felt a click and something warm in the cushions below his body.

 

Firefly’s incendiary bomb started a small fire in the cushions of the couch before starting the rapid and explosive detonation process of the half-pound of Semtex attached to the device. The couch’s cushions were made with a very cheap and flammable filler which only accelerated the start of the reaction.

 

When the Semtex finally detonated, it engulfed the Senator and his busty dancer in a curtain of white-hot flames that incinerated their outer layers of skin instantly, exposing their muscles and organs to the burning heat and outside air. Licks of flame leaped to beer-soaked wooden tables and the framing structures in the walls, causing them to violently light up as well.

 

The club manager and one of the off-duty bouncers who was in to collect a paycheck, heard the smoke alarms and the automated fire annunciator go off and locked themselves inside the relative safety of the back office until the DC Metro Fire Department could come.

 

***

 

Moments before the ground floor ignited into leaping flames, Congressman Walsh had his friendly dancer on hands and knees on the upper lounge stage, begging him to fuck her wildly. She was wiggling her privates in the air him to inspect, and he had his erection in hand, ready to pop in from behind.

 

Scrap-Iron watched through the thermal imager as the silhouettes of Walsh and his dancer started off a cool green while she was stripping him naked, then turning to a mild orange as they played with each other. The silhouettes became a hot red as the dancer began to beg for Walsh to enter her. Scrap-Iron took aim with the M-72, pointing it so the missile would punch right through a glass second floor window and hit the stage where the Congressman was pleasuring the dancer.

 

Walsh laid a hand on the dancer’s shoulder as he leveled the head atop his penis in line with her dripping and inviting vagina. Scrap-Iron fired just as the congressman penetrated the dancer with an ecstatic moan.

 

The high-pitched sound of the missile flying at the club and shattering the upstairs window only drew a glance from the preoccupied Congressman, but his face turned from sheer pleasure to stark terror as the HE warhead detonated against the edge of the stage.

 

It shredded the old wooden planks and the laminated surface of the stage, making the material into thousands of deadly flying splinters. The splinters embedded by the hundreds into the victims’ unclothed bodies only a split second before the explosive reaction of the warhead ripped their bodies to pieces.

 

***

 

1600 hours

 

Klaxons sounded in fire houses all over northwestern Washington as the club’s fire alarm was picked up by DCFD Central Dispatch, along with numerous 911 calls reporting the same incident from passers-by on the street.

 

“Dispatch to Station One and all units of Battalion Five, that’s all units of Battalion Five. Respond immediately to a still alarm at 1819 M Street NW. Structural fire in progress with reports of flames on both the first and second floors of the building. At least two individuals trapped in an office at the back of first floor. Isolate and suppress the fire and prevent it from spreading to neighboring buildings. EMS, utility crew, structural safety officer, fire marshal and arson investigators are enroute. Battalion Five, respond to incident Code Three.”

 

The first DCFD units to respond to the blaze were the neighboring Engine One and Truck Two, from their house three blocks away on M Street. They were followed by a collocated Advanced Life Support ambulance, Medic One. The Battalion Five Chief left his firehouse on Connecticut Avenue to supervise the fire suppression callout. Local patrolmen of the Washington Metro Police also responded to form a perimeter for when more firefighters arrived.

 

Engine One’s commander was a veteran fire captain assisted by his first lieutenant, who commanded the tower ladder Truck Two. Both of the officers cautiously approached the burning building to look it over as their crews got rigged for action, setting out their hoses, extinguishers and forced entry gear.

 

“Containment is possible, since the building has cinder block construction where it touches the adjoining structures,” the captain observed. The first lieutenant tested the front doors and found them locked shut.

 

“It’s going to be a forced entry, captain. The main entrance has been fouled and won’t open. We have to try and get to the two trapped men in the back office who called 911 and reported their location.” The officers returned to their apparatus to brief their teams, as the first one-inch spray lines fed by Engine One and the local fire hydrant came to life, soaking the neighboring buildings to keep them cool.

 

Amid all the excitement, no one noticed Scrap-Iron and Firefly exiting the derelict building across the street, climbing into an unmarked delivery van, and quickly exiting the area.

 

***

 

1620 hours

 

A large crowd of passers-by had collected outside the police perimeter where the DCFD was fighting the structural fire at Joanna’s 1819. Many had murmured amongst each other wondering if there were any survivors inside. Their curiosity was further fed when an interior rescue team from the companies of Engine 21 and Rapid Response Unit 21 formed up and busted through the main entrance at the front of the club.

 

Additional hose lines, three-inch supply lines from fire hydrants along the block, and one-inch saturation sprays were added to the battle as the Battalion Five primary response apparatus arrived. With the adjacent buildings washed down and the threat of the fire spreading limited, all of the sixty or so firefighters on scene focused on putting out the blaze and finding the trapped employees.

 

A hose team followed the rescue team inside as they cWilliamsd up the lacquered wood bar area and elongated stage. Finding the door on the far side of the open serving area, the rescue team smashed in the locked door while the hose team washed down every spot of fire they could see and bathed the rescue team in a cooling spray.

 

Quickly wrapping the manager and bouncer in extra sets of fireproof ‘turnout’ raincoats, the rescue team led the trapped victims out to the front door where they had entered, as the hose team washed their escape path down ahead of them. Both victims buddy-breathed pure oxygen and normal air from the rescue team’s Scott air respirator tanks as they struggled out under their own power.

 

A cheer arose from the onlookers when the rescue and hose teams returned to the sidewalk with the two survivors of the fire. EMS medics quickly swarmed the group to lend assistance as the Battalion Five chief ordered an all-out hose attack to finally quench the blaze and be done with it.

 

***

 

Yankee Stadium, 1700 hours

 

The crowds were staying orderly as they filed out of the stadium, which brought a sigh of relief to Duke and the NYPD incident commander. The ploy of using the Senator’s visit as an excuse for the extra security measures seemed to have paid off. No one bothered the crime scene once the VIP level was cleared by the NYPD ESU team. Most of the spectators didn’t even ask questions when they were told the ESU presence and exit searches were simply a security drill.

 

Crypto had the foresight to bring along a digital camera from Fort Hamilton, and as the NYPD CSU was tagging the body and making all of the ballistic trajectory measurements, he was also taking photos of the scene for a separate file to transmit to General Hawk.

 

Scarlett was massaging Duke’s temples as he groaned, trying to piece together what they knew so he could tell the General. Before even considering picking up his cell phone and calling the Pentagon, he mumbled in Scarlett’s direction, “You and I have to take a hot bath together back at the base when this clean up is over, so I can take my mind off of the image.” He held his nose and averted his eyes as the body, blood and brains spread around the sky box began to turn rancid and stink. “Thank God this smell didn’t start during the game. Sheesh! There’d be no way to hide the murder from the neighbors!”

 

Scarlett kissed Duke on the sides of his head and then gently on the lips. “It’s a date, Duke. And it’s one that I am most happy to come with you on.” She handed Duke his cell phone and flipped open the cover. “Now, no more delaying the inevitable; it’s time to call this in.”

 

***

 

Joanna’s 1819 Club, 1800 hours

 

With the structural fire finally out, the arson investigators and fire inspectors began the arduous task of trying to find the bodies of the patrons, as well as identify the cause or causes of the initial blaze.

 

Once the fire had taken hold, it gutted the interior of the building, and rather fast because of so many flammable materials, the numerous bottles of booze lining the bar walls notwithstanding. But areas along the outer walls of the place still had color from the original décor showing through the scorch and ashes.

 

Captain Mike Weston, a twenty-year veteran of the DCFD, was one of the city’s finest arson detectives. He coordinated the metropolitan coroner’s team as they tagged the bodies in place and recovered the security tapes in the back office to aid in identifying the people during their last moments.

 

The Battalion Five chief knew Weston by name and quickly asked as they picked through the ashes and debris, “Hey, Mike. There’s a lot more bodies in here than the usual flash fire. Do you think it’s an arson case?”

 

“Most assuredly, I would say so, Chief,” Weston replied. “The rescue crews reported that all access doors, including the emergency exits, had been fouled somehow so they couldn’t open. Not that it mattered much. None of the skeletal remains were near a door. They were all incinerated in place.”

 

Weston shook his head sadly and continued. “We’re going to need help from the police forensics teams on this one. Have a look.” The DCFD captain pointed to what he thought was the epicenter for the ground floor flare-up, the couch where Senator Smithers and his dancer were sitting.

 

“This spot here has the most scorching, and the upholstery and stuffing material was burned clean through as if the object that started it all was stuffed in between the cushions. You can hardly tell this was a cushioned couch if you looked just at this area here; there’s no material other than ash and residue. I think we need forensics because this was no run of the mill arson.”

 

He picked the frayed end of an insulated wire out of the remains of the couch. “Someone was after whoever was sitting in this very spot. An incendiary device coupled to some sort of plastic explosives would start the fire to cover the evidence and insure the deaths of at least these two crispy critters before they could get away. The poor saps probably were too wrapped up in getting crazy to even know they were burning until it was all over.”

 

The Battalion chief quickly raised his radio to call Central Dispatch. “This is Chief Five-Bravo to Central. This is an ugly one and Captain Weston suspects foul play. We need the FBI and Metro PD Crime Scene Team down here double quick. Have all units involved in clean up keep from moving any potential evidence and if they’re not sure what to call it, to give it to Captain Weston and the forensics unit. Five-Bravo over and out.”

 

Captain Weston and Chief “Five-Bravo” shook their heads in dismay over the grotesque loss of life, and then moved to the steel-framed stairs leading upstairs to complete their inspection of the carnage.

 

Upon reaching the upper floor, they looked to a fireman who was tagging the torn and badly burnt body parts of Congressman Walsh and his dancer friend. They were strewn all over the upper level by the stage, but Captain Weston immediately recognized a second epicenter. He walked over to the splintered and demolished stage and started poking around the large gouge the high explosive warhead had cut out.

 

“This was definitely foul play, Chief,” Weston observed, picking through the splinters and debris.

 

“Was it a bomb under the stage?” the battalion chief asked.

 

“Worse. Some sick fuck fired a missile in here, right at the victims.” Weston pulled out a scorched but intact fin assembly from the LAW rocket. “Here’s a piece of it. It’s unmistakable; I saw these in the ‘Nam when I worked EOD for the Army. This is an M-72 LAW. It’s a high explosive, fin-stabilized, unguided rocket for short range engagement of armored vehicles.”

 

Weston walked over to the row of four windows that looked out over M Street. “See here, Chief. Three of these windows were blown outward as the pressure and gases from the warhead blasted the glass away.” He then picked up the frame to the fourth, which had fallen inside the building. “Why would one window have fallen inward when the rest broke outward? The missile punched through this one, which means it must have been fired... from somewhere across the street.”

 

“Oh, shit,” the chief cursed. “You’re right, Mike. This is a big deal.”

 

***

 

1830 hours, Leesburg, Northern Virginia

 

Scrap-Iron honked angrily at the stopped traffic on State Highway 7 in Leesburg, as it crawled forward inches at a time towards the treacherous area known to locals as “Five Corners”. The rush hour traffic jam and gridlock was still in full force as the van Scrap-Iron and Firefly occupied was only one of hundreds making for the back roads leading to Dulles International Airport, where a private plane chartered secretly by Cobra awaited them.

 

“C’mon, you bloody bastards! Isn’t there a fucking brain amongst you?” Scrap-Iron yelled at the traffic as impatient drivers cut back and forth across the travel lanes and into the shoulders as what could have been simply a long line of slow-moving vehicles became a disorganized snarl.

 

“It’s a shame Wild Weasel is over in the Middle East with his Rattler squadron,” Firefly nodded in agreement. “He’d have made short work of these assholes. Why don’t you try the inside shoulder? This road goes all the way to the General Aviation complex at Dulles.”

 

“It sure beats hanging around here and risking someone at the fire getting the word out about this van,” Scrap-Iron agreed, whipping the steering wheel to the left and gunning the accelerator. The plain delivery van lurched across the yellow line marking the left side of the road and rolled at high speed along the grassy center divider.

 

Unfortunately for the fleeing Cobra agents, upon reaching a tree line further down Route 7, a Virginia state trooper was watching the van careening along the grass, and at the last possible moment, cranked up his blue emergency lights. The car’s siren wailed as the patrolman pulled his cruiser out of its hide and blocked the van’s path.

 

Scrap-Iron slammed on the brakes, bringing the van to a halt just short of the cruiser’s passenger side doors. Both men sat rigidly still, so as not to draw the trooper’s suspicion. Scrap-Iron fumbled about, as if looking for his commercial permit, and instead produced an MP-5K 9mm sub-machinegun. Firefly had the upper half of his camouflage jumpsuit wrapped around his waist like any utility repairman might on a hot day. The folds covered his accurized IAI Desert Eagle .44 Magnum automatic pistol.

 

The trooper sat in his car for what seemed like an eternity, studying the vehicle and the men inside. The van didn’t have a front license plate affixed, but that wasn’t a huge issue since both Maryland and Virginia didn’t require plates on both bumpers. Thinking that the van was another Maryland traffic jumper who wasn’t used to the gridlock at Five Corners, he adjusted his Smokey hat and climbed out of his Ford Crown Victoria to go talk to the driver.

 

Scrap-Iron and Firefly remained still as they state trooper cautiously approached, rapping on the driver’s side glass with his PR-24 police baton. Scrap-Iron rolled down the window and produced the rental paperwork for the van.

 

Before the trooper accepted the sheaf of credentials, he asked, “Is there any reason why your vehicle couldn’t take to the blacktop like everyone else’s?”

 

“Sorry, officer, we’re trying to get to Dulles Airport to meet a priority package. A donor organ is coming in for a little kidney patient in Alexandria.”

 

“You could have stuck to the Interstates, you know,” the officer said. “No, never mind. They’re just as bad today. Let me see your license and registration.”

 

Scrap-Iron turned the MP-5K so that the barrel was pointed at the trooper’s chest as he opened the driver’s door. The trooper’s eyes went wide with realization as the silenced weapon was fired. There was no hope for the state trooper as he absorbed fifteen rounds at point blank range.

 

Leaving the dead trooper lying in the muddy grass of the center divider, Scrap-Iron wheeled the van back into the now-thinning traffic and roared off at full speed.


	3. Fort Lee Interlude

“Cause and Effect”  
Chapter 2.5  
Fort Lee Interlude

“Damn, that was long, tedious and so fucking boring,” Duke swore, running his fingers through his closely-cropped blond hair. He produced the key to his quarters at the Fort Hamilton sub-basement the New York Joe Team called home. Once the door was unlocked, he pushed his way into the drab cookie-cutter mini-apartment, threw his keys into a convenient wooden bowl and stretched out on the small couch that adorned his sitting room. He mechanically kicked his feet up onto the simple wooden Ikea coffee table and leaned back to relax.

After a moment of sitting alone lost in his thoughts, a voice came from the hallway as Scarlett rounded the corner and entered through Duke’s open door. “Back in your usual thinking position, eh, Duke?” she asked with a smile and a playful swat as she shoved Duke’s combat booted feet off the surface of the coffee table. “What did I tell you about feet on the table? Even if the Army is paying, I am NOT going to that Ikea again when the quartermaster finds out you busted another coffee table!”

Duke straightened up on the couch as Scarlett settled down next to him and regarded him with her deep blue eyes. “I know the situation with Senator McLaughlin was hell, baby,” Scarlett observed. “Can I do something to make you feel better?”

“We did discuss a hot bath,” Duke replied slowly, getting up to retrieve two cold bottles of water from his kitchenette’s refrigerator. “That’s an idea.”

“Let me draw you one then,” Scarlett replied with a loving smile, getting up off the couch and turning to face the bathroom.

Duke raised a hand from the kitchenette. “Wait a second, Red. I don’t want to take one here. I think we need a change of scenery to unwind.”

Scarlett put on a neutral but questioning look as she wondered what Duke had in mind. She walked to the small counter extension between the sitting room and kitchenette and took a stool, accepting Duke’s proffered bottle of spring water and taking a long slug. Duke looked like he had more to say about the idea but instead remained silent. He looked Scarlett over with the big pools of blue she loved getting lost in so much.

She sat through the awkward pause as long as she could bear and then spoke up again. “So, Conrad, are you actually going to tell me where this change of scenery is that you want to find?”

“Actually, Red, I want to go ask someone how to get there. How about we meet at my car on the garage level in thirty minutes? Bring along an overnight bag and change of uniforms just in case, okay?”

Scarlett polished off the spring water and tossed the empty plastic bottle deftly into Duke’s trash can. She got to her feet and brushed Duke’s cheek gently with her palm. “I’ll see you there, sweetie.”

***

Thirty minutes later:

Scarlett made her way across the parking garage level of the Joes’ Fort Hamilton accommodations on time with a large shoulder bag in tow, opting to wear a simple and non-military outfit of white blouse, khaki slacks and black, block-heeled pumps. She walked along the row of personal vehicles parked near the sub-basement elevators until she found Duke’s favorite emerald green, 1978 Ford Mustang Cobra. The immaculate muscle car was one of the few toys Duke allowed himself to hang onto through his long military career, and he kept it up as lovingly as he tried to care for their relationship.

She had always admired his Mustang, just because of the fact it was proof positive that when Duke wanted to take care of something badly enough, he was loyal to it till the very last. It had made her that much happier when he quipped once on a dinner date that she was very much like his Mustang in that respect.

Scarlett’s happy contemplation was interrupted by Duke’s voice echoing through the underground parking garage. “Hey there, Red! Are you all ready to go?” Duke approached his car and smiled at Scarlett, as he dangled the keys from his hand with a jingle. When he reached the car, Duke casually tossed an ALICE pack filled with his necessities onto the cement floor and fumbled for the door key.

Duke first opened the passenger side door for Scarlett, helping her inside and then gathering up their bags to load into the trunk. After closing the trunk with a metallic clang, he opened the driver’s door and playfully slapped Scarlett’s left hand as she shifted to try to climb over the center console and slip behind the wheel.

“As much as I like letting you drive my hot rod around, Red, I need the wheel this time, or else we might get lost...” Duke said, taking Scarlett’s left hand off the wheel and kissing it. He reached over to the ignition with his keys and started the throaty V-8 high-performance engine.

“There’s another hot rod of yours I like more,” Scarlett playfully responded with a glimmer in her eye. “Can you tell me where we’re going now?”

Duke released the safety brake on the Mustang and shifted it into gear. When he applied the gas, his finely-tuned motor roared with the sound of American-built power. “I’ll tell you when I’m sure where we’re going,” Duke replied. “Right now, I only have directions that Crypto gave me. He said that he arranged everything for us when we get there.” Pressing down on the accelerator, Duke drove to the garage exit ramp and out onto Fort Hamilton’s surface streets.

Their Mustang turned onto a well-worn Brooklyn side street after leaving the property of the Army Reserve base, and Duke pulled out onto a ramp leading to the Belt Parkway. Looping back around Fort Hamilton on its western perimeter, they followed another exit ramp up onto the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, crossing over to Staten Island.

Upon passing through the bridge tolls, Duke followed Crypto’s written directions onto I-278, the Staten Island Expressway, which took them all the way to the Goethals Bridge and into New Jersey. “Pshhh!” Scarlett made a mocking sound with her lips in jest. “Crypto’s sending us to ‘Joisey’ for some personal time? I thought he had better taste than that!”

“Don’t question his taste, Red,” Duke admonished with a smile. “He’s lived in New Jersey most of his life; I’m sure he gave me a good place to enjoy ourselves and still be able to return back to base if this alert gets more intense.” He turned the Mustang onto the ramps for the New Jersey Turnpike and quickly retrieved a toll ticket.

“So, I have to ask: What Exit?” Scarlett said with a sexy laugh as Duke pulled out of the toll plaza and onto the ramp for the northbound Turnpike.

“He says 18W, Red. We’re going to a town named Fort Lee, up by the GW Bridge,” Duke replied with a smile as he maneuvered through the early evening traffic with more than a little need for legerdemain.

“Hey there, hot stuff! Don’t get too excited to go there! You could get a ticket for so much speed.” Scarlett pointed a finger at the Mustang’s speedometer. Duke didn’t realize that he had accelerated to almost ninety miles per hour. He blushed and glanced about for state troopers as his foot came calmly off the gas pedal.

After about seventy minutes’ worth of driving from Fort Hamilton, Duke finally reached the end of the directions from Crypto and pulled into the parking lot of the Marriott Glen Pointe in Fort Lee, a spacious hotel and conference center located across from Manhattan.

Scarlett whistled through her teeth as she looked over the brightly lit and regal hotel. “I guess Crypto’s taste isn’t all that bad,” she said as she helped Duke pull their bags out of the trunk. Arm in arm, the couple found the main entrance and walked up to the registration desk.

Behind the counter was a smiling young desk clerk, who warmly greeted Duke and Scarlett as they approached. “Good evening, sir and madam. Welcome to the Glen Pointe Marriott. May I have your reservation, please?

Duke fumbled for the written directions Crypto had given him. “Oh, wow, I think the info is still in the car. I was told by Lieutenant Williams of the US Navy that arrangements were made for us. The names are Hauser and O’Hara.”

It took the desk clerk about two minutes of typing at her keyboard to produce the reservation. “Ah, yes, we have you right here. Conrad Hauser. The Lieutenant fixed you up with the New York Suite, one of our best. He also arranged a reserved table at dinner here in the restaurant if you’d like some refreshments first.”

“That sounds like a perfect idea,” Scarlett said with a smile. “My stomach’s feeling a bit empty right now.”

Duke reached for his wallet to pull out his credit card when the desk clerk waved for him to put it away. “The Lieutenant asked me to tell you your money is no good here. He had won a ‘free night on the house’ promotional voucher and asked us to give you two the royal treatment in his place.”

“Wow; that was so nice of Crypto. Make sure you thank him when you see the Lieutenant again, Conrad,” Scarlett said. “Can we go eat now? I am feeling a bit famished.”

The clerk rang a bell for a redcap to take up their bags, and she handed over two keys. “When you’ve finished with your meal, the suite is on the fifteenth floor. The redcap will deliver your bags to the suite right now, and here’s a key for each of you. Please enjoy your stay here with us.”

Duke accepted the keys and handed their bags over to the attentive redcap as he escorted Scarlett to the hotel’s four-star restaurant. As they arrived at the Maitre D’s podium, the greeter ushered them immediately to a table with a “Reserved” sign atop it, and held out a chair for Scarlett.

“I’m really going to like our night out, Duke,” Scarlett said with a long kiss on the lips before she took her chair. “You had a great idea wanting to go off base tonight.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Duke agreed, as a waiter delivered water and a salad course and smiled patiently while Duke ordered drinks and a meal for Scarlett and himself. After the waiter departed, he clasped his hands around Scarlett’s and smiled.

“I promise you, no shop talk tonight, babe. Crypto told me he really liked this place. He attended a meeting here for his civilian job, and I think he said he was in the hotel at that meeting on September eleventh, when the Towers came down. The place left him a lasting impression.”

Scarlett looked about nervously for a moment and then relaxed. “Poor guy. I guess that was when General Tomahawk requested his orders to join the Joes to be cut. A lot of folks around here are very tight-lipped about 9/11 and the feelings they had that day.”

Duke was happy to change the subject from their unit’s intelligence analyst when he saw waiters approaching with their meal. “Honey, dinner’s here,” he said with a smile and accepted a steaming hot plate of prime rib of beef au jus and all the trimmings. A similar plate was delivered to Scarlett, who licked her lips hungrily.

After eating their sumptuous candlelight dinner, Duke and Scarlett retired to the New York Suite. The redcap had neatly left their bags just inside the room on a suitcase stand, and the housekeeping staff had everything in place from the turned-down bed to the array of towels next to the large kidney-shaped hot tub.

Scarlett found the mini-bar in the suite’s sitting room and poured Duke a little cognac while she turned on the suite’s stereo system and filled the space with sexy, soothing jazz music from a local radio station. She also found a dimmer switch and brought the lights in the suite down to a soft white glow.

She sauntered sexily over to Duke and gently shoved him into one of the suite’s plush couches to hand him the cognac. Cooing to him in her trademark ‘come hither’ Southern voice, Scarlett said, “Ya’ll just suck on this a while, Sugar, and enjoy the view while ah get the tub ready.” Duke could do nothing but comply as he took in the grandeur of the suite and allowed himself to unwind.

Scarlett kept a smile fixed on her face as she kneeled aside the hot tub and began to draw hot water into it. She found the hotel had provided more than enough bath products to put a nice head of foam on the bath as the tub filled. Once the hot water was running and the tub began to churn up the soap into foamy suds, Scarlett walked back into Duke’s view and teasingly wiggled out of her heels and khaki slacks.

Her simple white button down top came off next, and Scarlett modeled a set of Victoria’s Secret matched lace and silk undergarments for Duke. She then sat on his lap and they made out for a few seconds as she unbuttoned Duke’s green dress shirt.

Scarlett heard the lapping water as the hot tub neared its high-water line, and she retreated to the tub to pour in the soap and turn the faucets off. Duke quickly shed his clothes and snuck up behind her, planting a surprise kiss on the small of her back.

“Yikes! I wasn’t expecting that, you cad!” Scarlett yelped playfully, as she eased off Duke’s boxer shorts and guided him into the steam-filled bubbly tub. Once he was settled in and comfortable, Scarlett shed her undergarments and climbed in alongside.

The hot water and foam bubbles enveloped Duke and Scarlett as they eased in up to their necks in the hot tub, sighing with a mix of pleasure and relief. Scarlett gently reached around behind Duke’s back and began to massage his neck and shoulders, giving him little kisses on his scalp as she squeezed out the knots of tension in his sore and tight muscles. Eventually her fingers made their way to his temples, where a gentle circular rub elicited a soft moan of relief from Duke’s mouth.

“This must be one reason why I love you so much, Shana,” Duke said with a satisfied grin. “You can always help me forget the rigors of another day at the office.”

Scarlett slipped her hands down below the sudsy water and pressed her chest against Duke’s back. Her hands gently wrapped around Duke’s member as she softly whispered into his ear. “I have many methods to help you forget. Thank you for having the idea of coming here to use them.”

Duke leaned back slowly with a groan as the bubblers of the hot tub put out warm jets of soothing water. Scarlett gently pumped at his member with her hands and straddled his outstretched legs, while her glistening breasts hung in front of Duke’s deep blue eyes. She had become heavily aroused by the warm jets of water blowing against her thighs and butt, and she gave Duke a show of her excitement with a generous view of her firmed red nipples.

Duke’s hands played along the gentle curves of Scarlett’s body. He started down from her shoulders, along the edges of her ribcage down to her belly. Then the rough skin of his palms moved up her well-toned abs and ended their trip on her heaving breasts, where he gave them long loving caresses. Scarlett moaned when he rolled her nipples between his thumb and forefinger, pinching them lightly as the rest of his hands cupped her ample breasts.

They continued to play and tickle each other in the tub for an hour, occasionally letting out a giggle or splashing the other. Eventually, the tub filters removed all the soap suds and the water had gone tepid. As Duke and Scarlett kissed in the lukewarm water, their bodies intertwined, Scarlett pushed Duke’s lips away for a moment and whispered, “Please take me, Conrad. Take me now.”

Duke climbed out of the tub first, his firm muscles glistening in the mood lighting and rippling slowly as he turned to hold up a towel for Scarlett. They spent about a minute toweling each other off before Scarlett resumed her pleading for Duke’s manhood. Her thighs were burning with desire, and she didn’t want to wait another second.

Dropping to her knees, Scarlett ripped away Duke’s towel and nearly swallowed his erection whole. Her tongue drew round circles across the flesh as she moved her lips up and down the shaft. Immediately incensed by the feeling of Scarlett’s lip service, Duke ran his fingers through her fiery red hair and began to sway his hips in a thrusting motion.

Scarlett was thoroughly heated up with passion once she began giving Duke fellatio and she spread her own knees apart, slipping a hand between her thighs and gently rubbing her own clitoris. She wanted so badly to please Duke so that he would give as good as he was receiving.

Duke was quickly losing his ability to restrain himself and wanted to prolong Scarlett’s pleasure, so he gently grabbed her shoulders and bade her to follow him into the suite’s plush bedroom. With few words, he made her lie down on the soft bed and then sat beside her.

Without delay, Duke began with slow kisses on Scarlett’s lips as she moaned and writhed in delight. He then let his mouth and tongue linger on her swollen nipples while his hands groped softly down her legs. Scarlett’s knees parted again, as she implored in a hushed whisper, “Give it to me, Duke. Give it to me good.”

Inhaling the warm and musky scent of Scarlett’s arousal, Duke dove between her legs to have a taste of her womanhood before he penetrated her. He swirled his tongue in and out, causing Scarlett’s bed sheet demands to come out more in a begging tone of voice. When he felt he had teased Scarlett enough, Duke raised his body over Scarlett’s and positioned his hot rod over her quivering mass of female flesh.

Scarlett was so slick with excitement that Duke entered her easily. With a grunt, he was pelvis-deep and spreading her wide with long slow thrusts. Scarlett let out an animalistic scream of contentment and gripped Duke’s shoulders in an unbreakable hold.

Beads of sweat formed on Duke’s brow and fell like a sensuous waterfall onto Scarlett’s heaving breasts as her breathing became quick and passionate. Duke was thrusting quickly, deep inside Scarlett, giving her every inch of the hot rod she loved playing with so much.

Scarlett’s legs wrapped instinctively around Duke’s pelvis, as he buried his erection inside of her with every deep thrust. Her legs drew him into her, as they felt as close to one single entity as they possibly could.

They ground against each other’s bodies long and hard, steadily increasing the tempo until both were screaming each other’s names and dripping with sex-induced sweat. Scarlett climaxed first, in a shattering orgasm. She grabbed Duke’s hair at the nape of his neck and buried her face in his chest muscles when she screamed out in ecstasy. After her high died down, she pulled Duke to her and kissed him deeply, telling him to finish off; that she wanted to feel his hot release.

Duke rolled Scarlett over and guided her up onto her hands and knees. Kneeling behind her, he ran his hands playfully up Scarlett’s sweat-soaked thighs and poked his shaft between the glistening folds of her vagina. Grunting with a deep pleasure of his own, Duke re-entered her from behind, grasping onto her shoulders and anchoring her legs with his ankles.

Scarlett moaned excitedly when she felt Duke in the new position. She squeezed him inside of her with all the muscles that she could control, as he doggedly thrust as deeply as possible. She egged him on with raunchy talk, goading him to give her every inch, every thrust harder than the last. “Fuck me, Top! Ram it home baby!”

After a few minutes of wild thrusting and the slapping of flesh on flesh, Duke welled up and groaned one last time as he released a hot load into Scarlett. She eagerly squeezed him tightly to take in every drop he was willing to let go. The couple then collapsed in a heap and curled up into a spooning position as they dozed peacefully.

By the next morning, Duke and Scarlett had been sure to explore the entire suite with their sexual encounters, from being bent over the edge of the hot tub, to a Tantric twosome in the smaller shower stall. They used the sitting room couches and tried a couple more positions in the bed before they were finally sated. They both checked out from their night of debauchery with big smiles on their faces.

As they rode back to Fort Hamilton in Duke’s Mustang, his Nextel cell phone went off. Crypto had called and left the message “911”. It was time for Duke to return to the job of investigating Senator McLaughlin’s death and his task of rebuilding the Joe team for combat duty.


	4. Summit of Evil

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Three

Summit of Evil

 

12 July 2002, 1830 hours

Level Three, E-Ring, the Pentagon

 

Major General Clayton “Tomahawk” Abernathy sat down with a sigh at his lacquered wood desk in the top-security section of the Pentagon, America’s hub of military decision-making. He was shuffling through messages and mail, and letting his desktop computer sift through an immense load of confidential materials that his aides and secretary weren’t allowed to deal with.

 

His seat as an inside man with the Jugglers gave Tomahawk the pull he needed to undermine them from within and to get the G.I. Joe Team out from under their influence for good. But the process was taking time and energy. It had been more than six years since the original disbandment of the team, and Tomahawk wasn’t the spry young officer he used to be.

 

But, all things considered, Tomahawk had his inroads in good shape. He had the evidence to break up the Jugglers and had Air Force General Winters hanging over a barrel. He knew about Congressman Cartwright, who had been leading the opposition in the House Armed Services Committee to properly fund the Joes. When the time was right, he knew he had the wherewithal to move.

 

The STU-20 secure telephone on his desk rang and he reached to pick it up. Tomahawk’s secretary was on the other end of the line. “General Abernathy, Master Sergeant Hauser is on the line. He says it’s urgent.”

 

“Go ahead and put Hauser through,” the General replied. He knew that when Duke was personally in the field with a team of Joes, he chose to use his old Army rank rather than be referred to as an “Agent”, although his current government ‘GS’ rating was much higher than the E-8 he served as when he was Tomahawk’s first sergeant.

 

A series of clicks came from the phone handset, as the digital security features were activated, and then Duke’s voice came over the line. “General Tomahawk? This is Duke. We have a situation out here in New York. A sniper hit Senator McLaughlin at the baseball game. We were taken completely by surprise. There’s a security party of Joes here now, but we’ve yet to find any evidence that we can report on.”

 

“Damn,” Tomahawk cursed in a low voice. “I’ve had a sneaking suspicion for some time that the most outspoken members of our House and Senate, and the Armed Forces for that matter, might be targeted if or when a partnership between the Jugglers and Cobra went south.”

 

“You’re joking, right?” Duke said incredulously. “The Jugglers are in bed with the enemy? American generals have been throwing in with Cobra all along?”

 

“I’m afraid so, Duke, but the information is from my mouth to your ears and no further. The Jugglers have been profiting ever since they were able to politically tug at our team’s purse strings so many years ago. They were skimming money off our programs and lining their pockets with it. It seems that they also have been dealing with Cobra of late in exchange for even bigger bribes and promises of their own personal fiefdoms when Cobra re-emerged and unveiled its master plan to the world. But because we broke their plan, Cobra and the Jugglers found no use for each other.”

 

“Those sons of bitches,” Duke fumed. “I’d love to throw all of their asses in with Storm Shadow on one of his PMS days and see how many come out smiling!”

 

“Take it easy, Duke,” Tomahawk said authoritatively. “Cobra has backed off on their global scheme, and I have an ace up my sleeve to get the Jugglers off of our backs for good. But the Jugglers aren’t the ones in control of the legislative branch, and that’s why I suspect a rogue Juggler is trying to start a quiet coup to assume power from within, or Cobra is targeting the Joe Team by trying to let the opposition keep up its momentum and kill our funding, by eliminating staunch supporters. I doubt if we’ll find the real power behind the murder very soon, but we need to start covering our friends. I had hoped that between you and Scarlett, you’d be able to pick up on a potential threat unobtrusively, but it seems Cobra, or whoever gained access, covered its tracks well.”

 

“As far as I can tell the killer did,” Duke agreed. “But we can start here and give the stadium a good looking over. The NYPD forensics and crime scene teams are good. They’re going to try to localize the origin of the shot and get us more info on the profile and modus operandi of the sniper. And all the authorities are playing ball this time.”

 

“That’s fine,” Tomahawk said. “But we can’t waste our time on the dead if Cobra is hunting down elected officials. Spread the word and mobilize everyone you can get your hands on. And I’m talking every Joe out there, Duke. The Jugglers can eat shit and die over their imposed personnel cap this time.”

 

Duke smiled at the General’s last statement. “You got it, General. I for one am glad to see we’re going in the right direction. We’ll report in again soon. Yo, Joe!”

 

***

 

Saturday, 13 July 2002, 0800 hours (local)

Presidential Palace, Baghdad, Iraq

 

The motorcade of Mercedes limousines roared through the broad boulevards and narrow city streets from Saddam International Airport, escorted by Iraqi Republican Guard troops in UAZ-469 jeeps. The blaring and wailing of the escort vehicles’ sirens could have awakened the dead as the convoy navigated through the road network of central Baghdad.

 

Eventually the group of vehicles came to a stop at the Presidential Palace, where an honor guard of Republican Guard troops in full military regalia lined the steps to greet the arriving visitors.

 

Emerging from the limousines were Cobra Commander, Destro and the Baroness, and the Crimson Twins, Tomax and Xamot. They were accompanied by a half dozen Crimson Guardsmen armed with their signature AR-180 assault rifles.

 

An officer among the Iraqi escorts took a quick glance at his watch and issued a number of hastily shouted commands in Arabic, as the Cobra leadership was hurriedly ushered inside the palace. “Please excuse our haste, honored guests,” the officer said in broken English. “An American spy satellite is approaching and we need to hide the motorcade.” Once the Cobras were safely under the roof of the palace, the motorcade moved off to follow a roundabout route out of the city.

 

The Cobra entourage was met on the inside of the palace by Faisal Tariq al-Hussein, the sitting Defense Minister and President Saddam Hussein’s Prime Minister, the equivalent of a chief of staff. With a simple bow and flourish, al-Hussein added his greetings to the group.

 

“On behalf of my President and the people of Iraq, we bid you welcome, fellow fighters against the Great White Infidels. Our beloved leader shall receive you any time you wish to speak. I have been instructed to offer you refreshments first, as you must be tired from your long journey from the Caribbean.”

 

Defense Minister al-Hussein clapped his hands, and plush chairs and tables stacked with local refreshments were carried out into the reception hall. “Please sit and enjoy our most humble hospitality,” al-Hussein invited with a sweep of the arm.

 

“I don’t mind if we do,” Cobra Commander said. “It has been a long trip for us.” The Cobra leadership sat down at the tables and smiled as the palace servants festooned them with food and drink.

 

Suddenly, a voice boomed from an upper level balcony overlooking the reception area. Everyone looked up and the palace servants bowed respectfully as the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, stood looking over the rail. “I also welcome you to my great nation, Cobra Commander. I shall join you shortly to share this bountiful meal.”

 

“Sheesh,” Destro whispered to the Baroness. “The reports on him were true. He likes to make grandiose entrances.”

 

Baroness looked about the reception hall and the ornate stonework and inlays of gold and colored tiles. “He can afford to do anything he wants, Destro. That’s why we’re here to see him.” She batted an eyelash sexily at the Scottish weapons dealer. “I’d be interested to see our guest room so I can get you out of that mask and into your little black leather thong.”

 

“Not now, Baroness,” Destro warned, as Saddam exited a side stairwell, dressed in his military uniform. His servants delivered an even more regal chair than those which had come out earlier, and he sat next to Cobra Commander. The Commander briefly introduced the members of his party, and the group settled down again to eat.

 

After a time, when the group was happily resting from their gluttony, Saddam finally began to talk business. “So, your terrorist group has been foiled many times by the Americans and British, eh? And you now come to me? What can I do for you when the world thinks I harbor terrorists already and refuses to help me trade products for my country’s needs?”

 

“Quite simple, actually,” Cobra Commander replied. “Cobra Island is still recognized as a legitimate nation, and although not an official member of the United Nations, a nation nonetheless. I propose we begin to form more than just a trading partnership, but an alliance.”

 

“I will trade your oil for every manner of material you require, and you will open your borders to welcome and train every terrorist that should come along. Cobra will even provide reciprocation in the form of our troops and our weapons to help you keep the West at bay. Who knows? If this all works out, we could capture the entire Arabian Peninsula, you and I.”

 

“I trust you have much more than just the Arabian Peninsula in mind, Cobra Commander,” Hussein replied. “But I can see where this venture will be most profitable for both of us.” He extended a hand for Cobra Commander to shake in agreement. “When would you like to begin?”

 

Cobra Commander shook Saddam’s hand and replied, “Right away, Your Excellency. A freighter convoy filled with a regiment of my Vipers and numerous Cobra vehicles stands ready to disembark at al-Basra to form a ‘defensive’ task force under your flag. The ships will depart for Cobra Island with our first shipment of crude oil. We will use elements from that unit to probe the current defenses arrayed along your southern border with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia flying the Cobra flag. That way you’re not implicated in any combat actions against frontier troops that my men might get into.”

 

“Later, as our alliance grows, we shall bring Cobra-Tech and many other ventures to a new home in your nation, each one paying you a very generous fee to set up shop. We shall assist in rebuilding your infrastructure, and export to your heavy industries the ability to construct and sell Cobra weapons and hardware. Your country could very well triple Cobra’s production rates in the first year, bringing you more profits in taxes and bonuses to spend however you see fit.”

 

“But what about that American force designed to fight you? What about G.I. Joe?” Hussein asked.

 

“We had an inroad with elements of their military leadership that went sour due to the meddling of the G.I. Joe commander. However, a new phase of my plan to destabilize and weaken the G.I. Joe Team’s ability to fight is already underway. You might even be able to watch the reports on CNN.”

 

Hussein smiled and let out a deep belly laugh. “Allah has truly blessed us both this day. Bring your troops ashore, Cobra Commander, they are welcomed with open arms here in Iraq!”

 

***

 

Monday, 15 July 2002, 0530 hours (local)

Three days after the murders in New York and Washington

Somewhere northeast of King Khalid Military City, Saudi Arabia

 

The swirling desert sands kicked up dust devils and put the gritty stuff into everything with exposure to the outside as New Jersey Army National Guard officers of the 2nd Battalion, 102nd Armor “The Jersey Blues” made their way to an early morning briefing in their Battalion Tactical Operations (S-3) Section at the austere tent city that formed the forward headquarters.

 

The Jersey Blues, formerly part of the 50th Armored Division and then the 50th Heavy Separate Brigade, had survived numerous cutbacks of the reserve components of the armed forces. As of the latest national reorganization, the Jersey Blues and their fifty-eight M-1A1 (HA) tanks formed the heavy armor component of the 3rd Brigade, 42nd “Rainbow” Medium Infantry Division.

 

The Battalion Tactical Operations Officer (S-3 TAC) of the 2/102 Armor, a National Guard Major, quickly called the assembled company and platoon commanders of his tank battalion to order.

 

“Alright, troops! Stand easy! Settle down and listen up! We’re under orders from Third Brigade to perform a field maneuver exercise. Because this region is considered Indian Country, with Iraq just shy of seventy miles to our north, you will be carrying a full war load in your tanks, along with the MILES training gear and Hoffman smoke devices.”

 

The major pointed to a large area map and used a laptop computer and overhead projector to outline the battalion’s exercise. He handed out neatly typewritten mission orders to each officer present.

 

“Okay, standard METT-T OPORD. Today’s mission is to conduct battalion maneuver along the frontier trace between Saudi Arabia and Iraq. The Saudi National Guard is deploying a border security company whose mission is to locate and interdict our movement. Their AMX-30S tanks shall portray our enemy. We are expected to put all four companies in the field, commanded from our tactical command post. The Saudis will deploy on their SOP patrols at 0700 hours upon relieving their previous shift. That’s when we need to be on Phase Line Alfa and ready to kick off a standard advance to contact. All engagements will cease at 1100 hours or immediately upon a knock it off call from Saudi Northern Command HQ or our Command Post.”

 

“Weather conditions are clear in the engagement zone, with light winds that may create natural obscuration. Watch out for the blowing sand and make sure all crews have their dust goggles aboard. The exercise will not be carried out under MOPP conditions.”

 

The major looked around the faces of the unit officers seriously as he concluded his briefing. “Even though this is an exercise, you are to remain alert at all times. Because of the latest troubles in Iraq, CENTCOM has ordered 3rd Brigade to Threat Condition Red. Rules of Engagement on the border for us are to intercept everything hostile found maneuvering on the Saudi side of the frontier and call for immediate artillery suppression from the brigade artillery force. Tensions are high, which is why we’re running this drill for the Saudi border forces. Are there any questions? If not, brief your crews and get those armored pigs moving! Good luck out there!”

 

The tank officers filed out in twos and threes, climbing into Hummers to get to their companies and platoons. As the setting full moon lit the 2/102 headquarters area, the S-3 TAC returned to his work inside his section’s command tent.

 

***

 

Monday, 15 July 2002, 0700 hours

Phase Line Alfa, an imaginary line drawn in the sands of Saudi Arabia

 

“Blue Six Actual calling all Blue elements. Report your status in the assembly area.” The Colonel in charge of 2/102 Armor was on the battalion radio net to personally wish his men well in the upcoming field exercise.

 

“Blue Alpha Six, all elements in position,” reported the captain in charge of Alpha Company’s fourteen M-1A1’s. The other company commanders reported in by the order of their lettered companies.

 

“Blue Bravo Six, in position.”

“Blue Charlie Six, in position.”

“Blue Delta Six, in position.”

 

The Colonel acknowledged the reports with a terse “roger that” and then ordered the battalion support elements to report in.

 

“Blue One-Six, recon platoon is mounted up and ready for action.”

“Blue Eight-One, mortar platoon and FDC ready for all fire missions.”

“Blue Nine-One, recovery section is ready to roll.”

“Blue Tango Six, Headquarters Company and battalion trains are up on the net.”

 

The Colonel nodded, satisfied that his combat team was ready. “Okay, troops, you have your orders. Give ‘em Hell!” A loud “Hooah!” came across the battalion net’s radios, as all the tank crews let out their battle cry simultaneously.

 

It was then the turn of the S-3 TAC to kick off the exercise. “Blue Tango Six to all Blue elements, move ‘em out!”

 

With a whine that sounded like a flock of banshees from hell, the fifty-six tanks of 2/102 Armor’s four line companies fired up their gas turbine engines, warmed up their gunner’s day sights, and on commands issued by their respective company and platoon commanders, moved out into the early morning sunrise.

 

***

 

0715 hours

 

“Delta Three-Six to Delta Six, spot report. I have negative contact with OPFOR elements. Shouldn’t the Saudi border guard checkpoint be just to my northeast?”

 

The captain in charge of D Company 2/102 Armor studied his IVIS, the Inter-Vehicle Information System. Using the IVIS and SINCGARS, Single Channel Ground-to-Air Radio System, he could receive data feeds from any tank in the company, or higher commands, which would help in the determination of his tactics. The symbology on the IVIS tactical map overlay did indicate that the Saudi Checkpoint was only a few kilometers away from the third platoon, right along its axis of advance.

 

“Delta Six to Delta Three-Six. Be advised the OPFOR checkpoint is on your line of march. All Delta elements will shift to line abreast by platoons. Approach the checkpoint with caution; they may have ambush patrols out. This is simulated Indian Country, gentlemen. Keep your eyes peeled.”

 

By sections of twos, the fourteen tanks of D Company wheeled onto their new movement axis and sped out across the desert. The other three companies moved independently as per their exercise orders, to try and smoke out the Saudi defenders.

 

A few moments later, Delta Three-Six reported in again, in a frantic voice. “Delta Three-Six to Delta Six Actual. Spot Report, Urgent. I have smoke on the horizon! I repeat; I have smoke on the horizon at the Saudi checkpoint!”

 

“Shit,” cursed Delta Six to himself. “Delta Three-Six, we’re coming to you. Get no closer than three thousand meters and take up hull-down positions where you can. Send me a gunner’s day sight photo on the IVIS.”

 

One of the newer features being tested with the IVIS system was the transmission of digital photography between vehicles and command posts. Since the gunner’s day and night sights were already digital imagery-capable, it was just a ‘minor engineering miracle’ to add the ability to capture what a particular tank crew was ‘seeing’ in their area. The system was already capable of using photos, since IVIS worked with the Joint STARS system, which could pass satellite snapshots and other data feeds right to a combat commander.

 

“Delta Three-Six is halted and hull down, three thousand meters from Known Point One.” As soon as Three-Six reported stopping, the gruesome snapshot from the gunner’s sight was displayed on the company commander’s IVIS screen. The sprawling border patrol checkpoint’s buildings were all smashed to the ground or smoldering as the fires inside burned themselves out.

 

No life was visible, and Delta Three-Six counted at least eight Saudi medium tanks and twenty smaller vehicles completely burned to dead hulks. Delta Six immediately re-transmitted the image to Blue Six Actual, the battalion commander, and asked for additional instructions.

 

Colonel Jeremy Leighton, call sign Blue Six Actual, was already listening to the Saudi border command net as frantic calls went back and forth in Arabic between the patrol checkpoint and the Saudi northern defenses headquarters at KKMC. He knew his tankers were in extreme danger, and was already taking steps to cover them as he issued orders to his Brigade headquarters to wake up their attached field artillery battalion.

 

“Blue Six Actual to Delta Six Actual. Establish and hold your current position in defilade for now. Dig your tanks in if you can. All Blue elements, this is Blue Six Actual. This is an official knock it off call. The exercise is cancelled. All units clear your guns and prepare war loads. Turn east to form a defensive line along the Tap-line Road and report all contacts!”

 

As soon as the ‘KIO’ call came across the net, the M-1 tank crewmen sullenly began loading their 120mm guns with live ammunition, cursing among themselves that the Iraqis were doing it all over again.

 

***

 

0720 hours:

 

“Delta One-One to Delta Six, spot report. I have dust devils on azimuth three-three-five. It could be a column of infiltrators heading east to west away from us.”

 

“Roger that, One-One,” Delta Six Actual replied over the company net. “Blue Six Actual, dust devils reported on my left flank. Suspect enemy column is moving west from Known Point One.”

 

“Delta Six, your support is on the way, but right now it’s up to you,” Colonel Leighton replied stoically over the command net. “Advance to contact and engage enemy column. If feasible, report number and composition and definite axis of advance. Do not let them get past you to the Tap-line Road. Do you copy, Delta Six?”

 

Delta Six Actual looked at his paper map of the exercise area. About ten miles south of his current position was the Tap-Line Road, a well-maintained trace of asphalt highway that followed the strategically important Trans-Arabian Pipeline as it conveyed crude oil across the Arabian Peninsula. It was the only major man-made feature that represented northern Saudi Arabia’s road network and passed near the Saudi Northern Command base at King Khalid.

 

“Delta Six Actual to Blue Six Actual; we’ll hold them here or die trying. Hooah, sir!” Delta Six switched to the company net to address his tank platoons. “All Delta elements, the new line of march is due north. Shift left to make contact with dust devils reported on our company flank. Identify and engage hostile elements. Move out!”

 

The tanks of Delta Company, 2/102 Armor, whined off into the unknown and into what could become the biggest battle of the Weekend Warriors’ lives, or the battle that would end them.

 

***

 

0720 hours, Cobra mixed armored infantry column west of the Saudi border checkpoint:

 

A Cobra officer sat high atop his HISS III command tank, looking out over the desert in all directions with his binoculars, as he spoke into a radio headset directly with Cobra Commander in Baghdad.

 

“Anaconda Task Force calling Cobra Commander. We have probed the Saudi border defenses and already wiped out a border checkpoint with an approximate company-sized unit in residence. I have intermittent observations of dust clouds to our south which may indicate mechanized patrols that are working their way to us. We caught the slimy rag heads with their pants down, sir. They didn’t know what hit ‘em.”

 

Cobra Commander’s voice from Baghdad came over the task force commander’s headset, preceded by an evil laugh. “Very good, Anaconda Force. Continue movement to contact orders and engage in as many hit and run raids as you can. Return north across the border for re-supply of fuel and ammunition. And, Major, I want to see up close and personal video of the carnage! Cobra!”

 

The Cobra Major twirled his hand in the air and pointed forward, a hand signal indicating the column was to resume advancing. With a sputter of mixed diesel engines and gas turbines, the armored infantry force moved out to seek a new target.

 

***

 

0735 hours:

 

The platoon sergeant of D Company’s First Platoon, Delta One-One, broke the eerie tactical radio silence on the Delta Company net when he spotted silhouettes of armor along a sand ridge. “Delta One-One to Delta Six Actual; Spot Report! Contact established with intruder column! I count at least six heavy armored vehicles in view, possibly others behind a sand ridge directly ahead of my section! Converge on us! They’re marching southwest towards the Tap-line Road!”

 

The next voice on the radio net was that of First Platoon’s commander, and it was much calmer than his senior NCO. “Delta One-Six to all First Platoon. Engage at long range with APFSDS-DU kinetic penetrators. Use standard evasion patterns, and switch to HEAT when you get into closer ranges. We’ll take up a line, hull-down, about two thousand meters from their vanguard. First Platoon, engage the enemy!”

 

The relative tranquility of the ebbing and flowing desert dunes was shattered as First Platoon of D Company fired off its first volley of depleted uranium “silver bullets”. The rounds struck the first two HISS III tanks but seemed to explode harmlessly on their armored surfaces.

 

“Delta One-Six to Delta Six Actual; spot report. There’s got to be almost thirty armored vehicles now visible in my sights. Our first volley of DU had no effect. The vehicles are a configuration I’ve never seen, but there’s sloped armor on their noses. The column is two thousand meters from the line and closing. Where the fuck are you guys?”

 

Another tank reported into the net, this time from Second Platoon, which was closest to First Platoon’s hull down positions. “Delta Two-Two to Delta Six, we have a side aspect shot from our angle on the lead vehicles.”

 

The tank commander left the network live as he relayed commands to his crew. “Load Silver Bullet!”

 

The loader replied as he shoved an APFSDS-DU round into the gun’s breech and closed it with the clang of heavy steel. “Silver Bullet loaded!”

 

“Gunner, identify lead tank and lock on!”

 

The gunner slewed the turret to the correct angle and centered the lead HISS III in his gun sight’s pipper. “Identified and locked on!”

 

“Fire!” yelled the commander of Delta Two-Two.

 

The gunner replied “On the way!” as a loud screech indicated the firing of the 120mm main gun and the barrel pushing back against its hydraulic stabilizers. Less than five seconds later, the kinetic energy round covered the distance between the Abrams and HISS III and exploded with a loud crash and clouds of smoke. The gunner cried “Yahoo! It’s a hit! We got him dead to rights!”

 

“Don’t count your chickens, Gunner,” the commander of Two-Two said as he squinted into his day/night thermal imager. The HISS III seemed to have lost an outer panel, but it kept coming. They would soon be able to walk their heavy gun rounds into the Abrams’ defensive line. “Son of a bitch!” the commander cursed. “They have Reactive Armor plates too! It’s going to take the Fist of God to stop those behemoths!”

 

As Delta Two-Two was firing off its first shot of the battle, Second Platoon’s commander was trying another approach.

 

“Load Silver Bullet!” the Lieutenant in charge of Delta Two-Six ordered.

 

“Loaded!” was the mechanical response from the loader as the gun breech slammed shut.

 

“Gunner! Identify the black vertical strip between the nose and gun turret assembly! I think that could be an articulation collar and lightly armored!”

 

The gunner moved the turret of Two-Six slightly and reported, “Identified and locked on, Sir!”

 

“Fire!” the lieutenant called out.

 

“On the way, sir!” replied the gunner.

 

The depleted uranium dart shot out of Two-Six’s gun barrel and hit the HISS III right in its articulation collar, piercing the thinner materials and sending a fiery stream of dense molten metal into the tank’s interior. It immediately ignited the unstable hydraulic fluids contained inside the vehicle and within seconds, the tank ‘brewed up’ as the flames and noxious gases killed the crew.

 

“That’s it!” Two-Six yelled over the company net. “Hit ‘em in the black stripes! That looks like a weak spot in their armor!”

 

***

 

“Major! One of our lead HISS tanks has been knocked out!” a Tele-Viper in the command tank reported frantically. “We’re up against American main battle tanks!”

 

“Not to worry, trooper,” the Cobra Major replied. “They’re in gun range and our radars only have fourteen of them detected so far.” He activated the task force’s command net. “All Cobra armor, convert to assault formation one and dismount Viper troops!”

 

The entire column of Cobra tanks wheeled to their left and began firing their own kinetic energy projectiles at the defending tanks of D Company. From the rear compartments of the vehicles, HEAT Vipers and Desert Scorpions dismounted and formed into hunter-killer teams to go after the Abrams tanks when they tried to maneuver or withdraw to regroup.

 

***

 

0740 hours:

 

“Delta Two-Six to Delta Six Actual! They’ve changed heading and are coming right at our positions in line formation! I’ve lost half my platoon and Delta One-One has taken over First Platoon when One-Six got flamed! They’re going to try to mix it up with us so we can’t call down artillery! They’re at twelve hundred meters and closing!”

 

Delta Six’s tank fell back from the loose defensive line to try and call for backup, leaving the Company Executive Officer aboard Delta Five in charge of fighting the company, and the Third Platoon still hunting for a good position to fight from.

 

“Delta Six Actual calling Blue Eight-One; Fire mission. Immediate suppression, grid reference November-Bravo-146844. Target tanks and dismounted infantry in open rolling desert. Danger close. Fire for effect, I will adjust after first salvo.”

 

At the battalion’s 120mm self-propelled mortar platoon, the Fire Direction Center calculated the required trajectories to put their rounds on top of the advancing Cobra column, taking extra care not to shoot at the known positions of the friendly tanks.

 

The IVIS system lit up the mortar platoon’s map overlay with symbols for the friendly tanks in relation to the target coordinates sent in by Delta Six Actual. The FDC then used their TACFIRE computer to calculate the ballistics for each mortar vehicle from its exact position.

 

Within seconds, the firing solution was plotted, and the mortar platoon opened up in a cacophony of loud thumps, firing their high explosive rounds high over the heads of the beleaguered Abrams tankers.

 

The mortar platoon was deadly accurate, as the 120mm mortar shells fell right into a body of Cobra Vipers grouping to assault the line of US tanks. The high explosive rounds shredded a number of the infantrymen instantly, wounding many others from concussive blasts and shrapnel.

 

“Delta Six Actual to all Delta elements; don’t let their infantry get behind you to take shots at our engine decks or ammo bins! Engage with the co-axial machine guns when they get close! Stay buttoned up as long as possible!” Delta Six Actual switched back to the battalion command net. “Delta Six Actual calling Blue Eight-One. First salvo was right on the money! Fire for effect! Fire at will!”

 

The mortars began pumping rounds out as quickly as the crews could load them, delivering suppressive fire on the Cobra infantry. However, the HISS tanks rolled right through the explosions and kept on firing. One of them had bracketed Delta Three-Six as the Abrams got hung up on a sand dune and slid sideways against the motion of its tracks.

 

“Delta Three-Six to Delta Six Actual, my tank is hung up, but I’ve got the enemy in my sights...” The Third Platoon commander was about to order his gunner to fire when a Cobra round blasted through the turret ring on the askew tank, sending a jet of high-velocity molten metal into the fighting compartment.

 

“Oh my God! Delta Six, we’re burning in here! God help us!” After a few seconds of screaming, Delta Three-Six went off the air.

 

***

 

0745 hours:

HQ 2/102 Armor, Battalion Tactical Operations Section

 

“Dammit!” exclaimed the S-3 TAC, as he punched the metal folding map table with a balled up fist. “Delta Company is down to nine fighting tanks! Get the rest of the battalion to converge on their location!”

 

One of the lieutenants in the operations section, an assistant to the S-3 TAC, was relaying status reports from the other deployed units. “Major, Alpha Company and the Battalion Scout Platoon are moving due east to engage the enemy column, Bravo and Charlie companies are going to reinforce Delta’s line if they can cover the distance in time.”

 

“I don’t care if they burn every fucking drop of fuel to get there,” the S-3 TAC shouted in his command tent. “Get that relief to Delta now! They’re outnumbered three to one!”

 

***

 

0745 hours:

 

“Delta Five is gone, Six Actual! Lieutenant Gray is toast!” cried the Platoon Sergeant of Third Platoon as he witnessed up close and personal an attack from a Cobra HEAT Viper. The Viper and his escort team had launched a top-attack missile, which burst through the commander’s hatch of Delta Five and roasted the crew alive in a hellish orange flame.

 

Delta Six had to seriously take stock of his situation. The enemy had advanced beyond the safe margin for the battalion mortars to engage without risking his own tanks. The company had already lost two of the platoon commanders and the executive officer, along with two other tanks and crews. None of the personnel survived the enemy fires that struck home, as the tanks were all hit while buttoned up, and their crews had no chance of escape.

 

Delta Six Actual beat his fist on the commander’s console of his tank and raised the battalion. “Delta Six Actual calling Blue Six Actual. Our position is untenable. We aren’t scoring significant hits on the enemy enough to even the odds. I am requesting permission to withdraw all surviving elements to reorganize at the Tap-line Road.”

 

Colonel Leighton grabbed his boom mike from within his command tank, as it roared along with a handful of other headquarters vehicles that had been cobbled together to form a rescue column. “Delta Six Actual, your relief is on the way. I need you to hold! Reorganize in place!”

 

The colonel breathed out a sigh of frustration as he studied the tactical map overlay in his tank. Fortunately, the M-3 Bradley fighting vehicles of his scout platoon were about to engage the unknown enemy tanks.

 

“Blue One-Six to Delta Six Actual; spot report. Scout Platoon is in strong left echelon rolling up your company’s left flank. We’ve got some hot shooters and even hotter TOW missiles to save your boys’ hides!”

 

Each M-3 Bradley carried a box launcher for a pair of TOW anti armor missiles. The vehicle crew of five cavalry scouts on each platform had to reload while exposed to fire, so the platoon always engaged in pairs. While one loaded, the other fired and used their onboard 25mm Bushmaster guns to keep enemy infantry at bay.

 

The first volley of six TOW III missiles knocked out two HISS III tanks that were trying to outflank Delta One-One. But the Cobra tank crews got wise really quickly. They reacted rapidly with their own top-attack anti armor missiles and killed four of the six M-3’s in direct retaliation. The cavalrymen of the Scout Platoon died at their stations, not willing to give up the fight against the heavier HISS tanks. The two survivors were forced to turn south, where they hunkered down behind a sand berm and spotted for an artillery strike on the column’s rear.

 

Delta One-One and One-Three quickly met their fiery ends as the crews popped open their hatches to man the top deck machine guns. As they blasted away at the Desert Scorpions advancing on their positions, the HEAT-Vipers assigned to each hunter-killer team would simply launch their anti armor weapons into the open crew hatches and incinerate the crews.

 

A missed shot by a HEAT-Viper at the engine deck of Delta Three-Two caused a resulting explosion which threw the main battle tank’s track and rendered it immobile. Desert Scorpions chose to finish that tank off up close by dragging the crew out of their vehicle and mutilating them grotesquely.

 

One of the cavalry scouts from the Scout Platoon turned his imaging periscope toward the American tank line and spotted the Cobras atop Delta Three-Two. “Oh my God! They’re hacking up our crew while they’re still alive and kicking!” The scout immediately called for fire from the Brigade artillery, and a dozen 155mm rounds fell right on top of Delta Three-Two, killing the Cobra troops as well as putting the American tankers out of their misery.

 

***

 

0750 hours

 

Delta Six Actual was riding high in his cupola seat, using his tank’s cal-50 machine gun to keep the Cobra infantrymen’s heads down. He ducked down quickly with a curse, as AK-74 rounds stitched and bounced across the armored turret deck around him. A few of the rounds became a lucky break for Cobra, as they severed the antenna for the SINCGARS on the battalion command net.

 

“Delta Six Actual is off the net!” a worried communications operator reported to the S-3 TAC. “We have the remaining five tanks of Delta on IVIS with the two M-3’s but can no longer issue them orders!”

 

“Where in Hell are the other companies?” the Major fumed angrily. “Light a fire under their asses to ride in like the horse cavalry and save the day!”

 

“They’re trying to negotiate the sand drifts, Major! They say they’re doing the best they can!” reported one of the Operations Specialists.

 

“Well, tell them it isn’t fucking good enough! Their buddies are dying for the ground they can’t cover!”

 

***

 

Aboard Delta Six:

 

“Shit! The SINCGARS is out! We can’t call for support or vector our relief into position!” Delta Six Actual slammed the radio handset to the floor of the tank as HISS gun rounds exploded dangerously close. “Keep firing at those fuckers! Get the Scout Platoon survivors onto the company net! On my authority, we’re pulling out south to regroup on the Tap-line Road!”

 

With less than fifty percent of his vehicles and a pair of lightly armored M-3’s to protect, Delta Six Actual no longer had a choice to stand and fight. It was time to withdraw or die. “Driver, back us out of the enfilade and point your nose towards the Tap-line Road, due south. Get us the fuck out of here!”

 

The heat signatures on the surviving Abrams tanks became really hot, as they revved their gas turbine engines and four pulled out of their fighting positions to point their hulls south to safety. Delta Three-One, the platoon sergeant’s mount for Third Platoon and the acting platoon leader wouldn’t budge from its spot.

 

***

 

Aboard Delta Three-One:

 

Three-One’s driver was panicking as he applied full engine power to the tracks and couldn’t get them to turn. The loader and gunner tried to keep up the cannon fire against the HISS tanks while the Platoon Sergeant, a Gulf War vet named Poole, tried desperately to figure out the problem.

 

“Calm down, Davies! Calm the fuck down and check your status board!” Poole yelled to the driver, while he dropped into the center of the turret and got to his knees. He found the emergency egress hatch and un-dogged it, dropping the steel cover to the sands below the tank. He hung his head through the hole and glanced about to see if the drive bogies had been fouled by a near miss.

 

Davies breathed for a second as the whines of tank gun rounds whistled by incessantly. “Sergeant Poole, I have a red light on the left track suspension assembly! I don’t think we’ll be able to roll out of here!” Davies rapidly broke down again as the explosions around the tank became more accurate. “Oh, God! We’re all going to die!”

 

Sergeant Poole knew his duty and that of his men. He reached for his radio handset on the company net. “Delta Six Actual, this is Three-One. We are no-go with a mechanical. It looks like we’re going to be the stay behind team.”

 

***

 

Aboard Delta Six:

 

Delta Six Actual was on the verge of breaking down himself at the loss of most of his line company and almost all of his friends within Blue Delta. He didn’t want any more of them to be sacrificed. “God dammit, Poole, you egress your crew out of that tank! Ride south with Three-Three, they’re only a hundred meters to your southwest. Get your crew the hell out of there!” Poole’s voice, calm and collected like he had been in hundreds of battles before, came across the network loud and clear.

 

“Poole here, Captain. That is a ‘no-can-do’ with emergency egress for my crew. My driver has suffered a nervous breakdown and refuses to climb out. The gunner and loader have agreed with me. We’re going to hold them off. Get out of here, Captain, and save the rest of our boys! You did your best, sir!”

 

Delta Six Actual felt the entire tank vibrate and then lurch in an odd direction, as the driver blasted through a sand dune and dropped the tank down a slope on the other side. “Platoon Sergeant Poole, you’re an ornery, insubordinate son of a bitch! You eighty-six that fucking pig and ride out with Three-Three, dammit!” Delta Six Actual was telling the platoon sergeant to set the self-destruct satchel charge and make off with his men to the other surviving Third Platoon Abrams.

 

Poole ignored the plea from Delta Six Actual. “Just keep zeroing in on those bastards and make every shot count!” Three-One’s crew kept shooting, even when three HISS tanks found their range and pounded them with high explosive rounds. One glancing blow skipped off the sand and right into the seam between the turret basket and the hull. Three-One’s rolled steel hull exploded in a mass of fire and smoke and shot the turret almost thirty feet in the air before it came crashing to the ground.

 

The Cobra HISS III tanks overran the smoking hulks of Delta Company’s dead vehicles and kept up the chase. One by one, the Cobra vehicles bracketed and then brewed up the armored vehicles as they retreated.

 

***

 

Aboard Blue Tango Six:

 

The S-3 TAC slammed his fist down in frustration as the remaining icons for Delta Company and the Battalion Scout Platoon were systematically wiped out. The major was in constant voice contact with Colonel Leighton, Blue Six Actual, sadly reporting that the Jersey Blues’ tanks and men were dying out in the desert.

 

“This is Blue Six Actual. All elements press forward! We leave none of our brothers behind!” Colonel Leighton prodded over the battalion net. “Come on, Corporal Smith! Push this fucking pig!”

 

***

 

0810 hours

Aboard the Cobra command HISS:

 

The Cobra Major lowered his field glasses to the deck of his tank and smiled with satisfaction. Although he had suffered a half dozen tanks lost in the overall engagement, and about thirty-five infantrymen, he had wiped out about half a battalion of the opposition. Ordering his Tele-Viper to call in to Baghdad with the ‘mission successful’ signal, the Major ordered his echelons to turn tail for the Iraqi frontier where they could rest, refit and refuel.

 

Within five minutes, the Cobra task force was rolling due north in column, to hide their actual numbers. They released smoke pots to obscure the direction of their departure, and the Cobra troops aboard cheered noisily at their victory.

 

***

 

0850 hours

 

Colonel Leighton surveyed the battlefield from atop his command Abrams, as the forty-two remaining tanks of his battalion fanned out in a half-moon shaped defensive line. He dreaded the reports he’d have to file and the condolence letters he would end up writing upon his return to the battalion laager.

 

Shaking his head, the Colonel berated himself for reacting slowly, mumbling over and over “... I waited too long. It was a fucking slaughter.”

 

Until the rest of 2/102 Armor was ordered back to base, the men dourly collected bodies and extinguished small fires that still burned as small funeral pyres for the brave Americans that fought and died on the nameless, faceless desert between the Tap-Line Road and Iraq. The first battle of a dangerous new war had been fought, and the good guys weren’t looking too good.

 

An OH-58A liaison helicopter kicked up sand and dust as it settled onto a clear landing zone in the battlefield. The whirlybird carried up to the front lines the brigade’s commanding general and the Brigade Chaplain, who both set about doing their morbid duties.

 

After conversing with the commanding general, Leighton retreated to his tank and watched the chaplain as he delivered last rites to each and every tanker and cavalryman body that the troops recovered. He bowed his head and prayed for the souls of his men, loyal to America to the last. “I’ll see you all in Fiddler’s Green,” the Colonel said, concluding his prayer, and climbed down into his command tank. He hoped beyond hope that the men of Delta Company and the Battalion Scout Platoon could find peace where all horse soldiers have gone at death.


	5. Baghdad

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter 3.5

(Rated NC-17)

 

Presidential Palace, Baghdad:

 

Destro and Baroness walked along, hand in hand, as the Iraqi soldier escorted them to their guest room in the richly-appointed building. Both of them were awestruck at the inlays of precious metals and jewels and the masterful stone work that adorned the palace’s interior.

 

“Destro, darling,” Baroness pleaded in a playful voice. “When are you going to let me see your leather thong again?”

 

“Not now, Baroness. We have much work to accomplish to keep Cobra Commander appeased before any fun can begin,” Destro replied, his voice sounding angry. “I’d like to make the most of my rest break, if it’s okay with you.”

 

Baroness could see the stress Destro was battling, especially in his sullen eyes. She wanted so badly to just yank off his chromed mask and make him relax by ravaging him in their guest bed. Instead, she stroked his hand and said soothingly, “It will be fine, Destro my darling. Don’t let that vociferous egotist get to you.”

 

When they found the door to their rooms, the soldier bowed slightly and held open the door for Destro and Baroness to enter. They were shocked to find a large, four-poster king size bed had been prepared for them, with elegant silken streams of fabric draped over the posts to let them close out the world.

 

The rest of the room was richly accessorized with plush chairs, a settee, and calming artwork on the walls. A fresh breeze came through the open windows, tossing the lightweight curtains aside, and carrying in the voices of Muslim mullahs calling out to their faithful from mosque towers all over the city. Their chants and nearly hypnotic prayers were calling the faithful to their evening worship.

 

“They have such interesting religious traditions here, Baroness,” Destro noted as he listened to the mullahs prayers. “Quite a hypnotic sound, don’t you think?”

 

Baroness stood behind Destro and eased off his gun belt and wrist-rocket gauntlets while he looked out the window thoughtfully. “It is quite hypnotic, darling. Are you getting aroused like I am?”

 

Destro whirled around angrily to rebuke Baroness, and then underneath the mask, his face softened as he reached for her cheek. “I’m sorry, Baroness. I was going to yell again. This day has been frustrating.”

 

“I know,” Baroness replied, feeling the warmth of Destro’s touch on her face without the steel gauntlets. “But we will prevail, even if the Commander shows his ineptitude yet again.”

 

A Crimson Guard trooper quietly interrupted the couple, fearfully entering their rooms and asking for Destro. “Destro, Baroness. I’m sorry to disturb you, but the Commander wishes to meet with Laird Destro urgently.”

 

Baroness sighed and kissed Destro’s hand, returning his gauntlets to him as he nodded in acknowledgement to the CG. “I’ll be here when you get back, my love,” she added, blowing her masked lover a kiss as he departed.

 

***

 

Later in the evening:

 

Destro walked down the long corridor leading to the guest quarters, shaking his head in frustration at Cobra Commander’s insane ravings. He had even noticed several times that President Hussein was taken aback at the Commander’s behavior.

 

He had already forgotten which room was assigned to the Baroness and him, so a helpful young girl who worked at the palace guided him. She led him to the door of his room and held the door open for him as he yawned and stretched his tired muscles.

 

The room inside was darkened, save for a small fire burning in the room’s fireplace, and the scent of strong Persian spices and perfumes filled Destro’s nostrils. A sultry voice echoed out from the room, calling Destro inside. “Please come in, my darling; I have been waiting all day for you.”

 

Destro stepped through the doorway first, with the palace servant on his heels to turn on the electric lights from a wall switch by the door. The girl shrieked in fright when Baroness grabbed her wrist, keeping her from putting on the lights.

 

“Do not fear, Destro, darling, it’s only me.” Baroness drew the servant closer to her and made her wait against the wall for instructions.

 

“Anastasia please put a light on!” Destro complained. “I can’t even see my hand in front of my face.”

 

“You will see all you wish to see in good time, my laird.” Baroness cooed, whispering instructions to the servant to retrieve extra towels and to draw Destro a hot bath in their guest bathroom, and then letting her go.

 

A soft hand, not wearing the leather usually associated with it, snaked out of the darkness and gripped Destro’s wrist. Baroness gently removed Destro’s wrist-rocket gauntlets and set them aside. She then shut the door and slid his leather jacket off his shoulders.

 

Gently kissing and nuzzling his bare chest, Baroness reached for the clasps that only she and Destro himself knew about. Releasing the four clasps, she slowly lifted away his iron mask, revealing the rugged Scottish features beneath.

 

“Baroness... Anastasia...” Destro muttered softly as Baroness threw her arms around his neck and pressed her lips tightly against his. They kissed long and deeply as Destro wrapped his own muscular arms around his Anastasia.

 

“I never liked kissing you through that infernal mask, Destro,” Baroness whispered.

 

The young palace attendant knocked softly at the main door and entered the guest suite with the requested towels and snuck past the couple to draw Destro a hot bath.

 

“She looks rather tasty, doesn’t she?” Baroness asked playfully. She brushed her body, wrapped in a silken bathrobe, up against Destro’s as she led him by hand to the bath.

 

“Anastasia, don’t even go there,” Destro growled with a warning tone.

 

“It seems you have forgotten our deal, James,” Baroness said, stroking Destro’s cheek. “You may be the one in charge out there in our business world, but in the bedroom, I’m the one in charge.”

 

Baroness playfully swatted Destro’s rear as he climbed into the bathtub and the palace attendant began pouring warm water over his shoulders. Baroness leaned over the tub’s edge and pulled Destro to her by the chin. “And don’t you forget it. You’ll have a surprise when you’re finished.”

 

With a hypnotic sway of the hips, Baroness quietly exited the bathroom, leaving Destro to soak in the relaxing water.

 

***

 

About twenty minutes after starting the bath, Destro was being toweled off by the palace attendant, and she led him back into the bedroom. Baroness was sitting on the foot of the bed and facing the bathroom door as the attendant girl led Destro in the nude into the room and presented him to her.

 

Baroness smiled as she looked over her clean and glistening man. “I trust you paid attention to all of his parts, yes?” The attendant girl nodded and smiled from behind her veil. “Then it’s time we gave you a bonus for being so thorough.”

 

Baroness drew aside the curtains surrounding the four-poster bed, to reveal that she had a swing made of leather straps and chains installed over it. She also slipped her silk robe off her shoulders, to show that she was wearing a set of very revealing undergarments trimmed all in leather. She had a brassiere with cutouts that allowed her breasts to hang free, and wore a garter belt and straps without panties.

 

The palace servant gasped at the sight of Baroness baring all. It was certainly not apropos for Iraqi women to behave that way, even in private. Destro gaped at the sight of Baroness in her leather getup, and he cringed a moment when she pulled out a long riding crop and pointed the leathery end at him.

 

“The help is over-dressed, James, darling. Please relieve her of that stuff so we can be more comfortable.” Baroness sat on the edge of the bed and crossed her long legs, wanting to watch Destro undressing the young girl.

 

Destro paused, simply laying a hand on either shoulder of the servant. He looked down at her and could see fear cross her eyes as she became uneasy. “You will not be harmed, I promise,” Destro whispered as he felt the sting of the riding crop lashed across his buttocks.

 

“I said to disrobe her, NOW! Do not delay in front of your mistress!” Baroness tapped the riding crop in her hand, ready to spur Destro further if he held back again.

 

The servant girl’s eyes widened as Destro unwrapped her clothing and presented her to Baroness fully in the nude. His hands were now clamped down tighter, protectively, tense with anticipation for what Baroness had in mind for all of them.

 

“Place her in the swing, Destro,” Baroness ordered, watching her man obediently guide the servant onto the bed and up into the swing. The swing had a wide back support, where Destro urged the girl to stand, and then he leaned her back, clasping restraints to her arms, wrists, knees and ankles. Soon, the naked servant was hanging over the bed.

 

“Very nice, darling. Yes, she is very nice,” Baroness said. She took the riding crop in her hand and flicked the leather end on the servant girl’s nipples, tickling them into arousal. Although she was sort of scared at the whole idea of being tied up over the bed of Palace guests, Baroness’ teasing of her breasts made her relax as other emotions took over. “Now, Destro, pleasure her. Give her the reward.”

 

Destro hesitated as he thought about whether this was going too far for the poor servant girl. His reverie was broken by Baroness when she whacked him again on the butt with her riding crop. “Do not disobey your mistress, man-toy,” Baroness growled. “Give her the reward!”

 

Destro climbed onto the bed and kneeled in front of the swing, guiding the servant girl’s legs over his shoulders. At the sight of Baroness and the servant naked, he had developed quite an erection himself. He felt Baroness gently reach between his legs and stroke his rod, and moaned as he leaned forward to taste the servant girl.

 

When Baroness began to stretch a hard leather sheath over his member, Destro was shocked but couldn’t pull away. It was like a form-fitting bag cut in half, with a zipper that ran the length of it. She zipped the sheath tight and then hung a padlock from the zipper. Because Destro was erect and excited, the sheath felt like it was five sizes too small and was painfully pinching him off. “Anastasia, what the fuck are you doing?” Destro complained.

 

Baroness put a finger on Destro’s mouth. “Shh. That is your punishment for disobeying your mistress. I will let you free when I see fit, and not before. Now do my bidding.”

 

Destro nodded and kneeled in between the servant girl’s legs. He slid her legs over his shoulders and began to gently kiss and run his tongue along her quivering thighs. The girl was still very frightened and only managed a soft whimper.

 

Baroness grabbed a handful of Destro’s hair and pressed his face against the servant’s vagina. “She’s not having a good enough time, Destro! Do better or you’ll be punished!” She punctuated her point by smacking his rear with the riding crop.

 

Destro leaned closer and obediently licked and sucked on the servant girl, teasing her with his tongue and then vigorously penetrating her with it. Soon, the servant girl began to lose her inhibitions as her animal passions sprang from within. She moaned deeply with pleasure.

 

Baroness walked up to the girl’s side and drew the riding crop gently across her nipples, tickling them and getting them firm and erect. “Very nice,” she cooed. “You have such firm young breasts.” Baroness leaned down and planted a soft kiss atop each nipple and then stroked them with her leather-gloved hand, causing more guttural moans of pleasure to come from the servant’s mouth.

 

The servant girl’s moans increased as she tightened the muscles in her legs, trying to draw Destro’s face in and not let go. Her hips bucked as Destro’s tongue found her most sensitive flesh and erogenous zones, causing her to begin hip thrusts as if she was being penetrated by a lustful lover.

 

Destro came up for air, looking down the length of the servant girl’s body and watching Baroness dangle her firm and aroused breasts over the girl’s mouth as she stroked the young girl’s soft flesh with her hand and tickled her with the riding crop. He felt a soft whack atop his head when Baroness noticed he wasn’t performing, and slid his face back down to the servant girl’s hot inner depths.

 

After a few more moments of mouth music, the servant girl wiggled uncontrollably and let out a long gasp, as Destro hit the sweet spot with his tongue work. She sighed and swallowed a long gulp as she hit orgasm and squeezed her thighs tightly around Destro’s head. Baroness gently cupped her supple breasts and brushed a palm down her cheeks as the servant girl panted exhaustedly with the afterglow of her passion. After a few moments, the girl was let down from the swing and she scurried off in embarrassment back to her own quarters, where she would have pleasant dreams of the couple’s sex play with her.

 

***

 

Destro quietly wiped his face with a washcloth and watched Baroness recline on the stack of plush pillows at the head of the bed. She leaned up against them with her legs spread, giving her man-toy a proper view of her assets. When he dropped the face cloth to the floor, she leaned forward and grabbed one of his wrists, leading him back onto the bed.

 

Baroness’ expression changed from a come-hither smile to an evil grin as she quickly clamped Destro’s wrists in the arm bands of the sex swing and locked them so he couldn’t escape. He struggled slightly, resisting being bound up. “Let me go right now, Baroness!” Destro bellowed.

 

Baroness leaned around beside him and smacked his butt hard with the riding crop. “Don’t you talk back to the mistress in that manner, Destro, my darling! That’s an easy way to be punished severely!”

 

Destro bit back a yelp from the spanking as he felt the soft and supple glove leather covering Baroness’ hands wrap around the cock sheath. A click below his crotch was a sign that she had unlocked the zipper from the device. She purposefully unzipped it slowly, teasing Destro with wanting the satisfying feeling of letting his engorged member hang free and un-constricted again.

 

Baroness finally removed the cock sheath and gently rubbed Destro’s member to get the blood flowing through it. Destro closed his eyes and moaned happily. After a few minutes of gentle caressing, his manhood swelled and became fully erect.

 

Baroness rotated her position on the bed so that her face was below Destro’s crotch where he was suspended from the swing. By virtue of her facing his member, Destro could see Baroness’ glistening vagina lips as she spread her legs to give him a teasing look.

 

Soon, Destro yelped as he felt Baroness squeeze down on his balls and she took his erection into her mouth, hungrily sucking on it to elicit his moans and groans. She further teased him about his being bound by reaching between her legs with her free hand and pleasuring herself mere inches from his hungry mouth. Every time he tried to lower himself to her, she playfully pushed his face away.

 

“You will fuck me on my terms and at my pace tonight, darling,” Baroness whispered in between long strokes, taking his rod all the way into her meat-hungry mouth and then back out again where she could softly kiss the head and flick her tongue across it.

 

Baroness had nearly sucked Destro right to orgasm, but as she sensed his muscles tensing and his member throbbing with anticipation, she stopped and crawled out from underneath Destro’s suspended torso, wiping the juices from an orgasm of her own on his puckered lips. She then turned around and crawled backwards underneath him on all fours, pressing her hot flesh against his erection.

 

She reached between her legs and cupped Destro’s balls, sliding her hand up to his firm rod and guiding it playfully between the folds of her lips, and up along the valley between her butt cheeks. She let it dangle a moment and ground her erogenous spots up against the swollen shaft, driving herself to ecstasy until she couldn’t wait any longer. She took a firm grip on Destro’s manhood and guided it into her with a satisfying squish.

 

“Now, Destro darling, give your mistress her favorite toy!” She reached back with her riding crop and scored a shot on Destro’s thigh. The stinging sensation of the leather touching flesh spurred him to rock his hips as he humped against Baroness powerfully. “Oh, YES!” Baroness screamed. “It’s like riding my thoroughbred, darling!” She gave Destro two more light whacks with the crop to keep him excited.

 

“Fuck me, you stallion!” Baroness moaned as she ground her pelvis into Destro’s swaying hips and used the riding crop liberally on both thighs. Although suspended above the bed, Destro’s hands were able to reach down and grip onto some of Baroness’ hair, which he pulled at as his own excited response.

 

After being subject to Baroness’ ordeal, Destro’s cock developed a mind of its own and wanted release. Baroness felt the head vibrate deep inside her mound and she quivered with delight. But before she would let Destro have his release, she pinched at his balls and said simply, “Ask me.”

 

“Ask you what?” Destro asked breathlessly, flinching when Baroness put the squeeze on him.

 

“Ask me if you can come first.”

 

Destro let out a throat-clearing moan and whispered, “Please, Anastasia, please let me come inside you.”

 

Baroness clamped onto him a little harder. “I’m not convinced. Maybe I have to come first. Convince me!”

 

Destro repeated his plea in a near scream as he forced his body to thrust deeply into Baroness. “Anastasia, mistress, I want to come inside you NOW!”

 

She released him, letting him slide in all the way. “Very well; all that I wanted from you was for you to ask your mistress for release.”

 

Baroness pressed her face into one of the soft pillows of the bed, muffling her own erotic screams as she gripped onto Destro’s balls and guided his rod all the way inside her. She felt him tighten up as he exploded inside her with his orgasm. His release was enough to drive Baroness over the edge as well, as she screamed out his name while she came. After releasing Destro’s wrists, the couple collapsed onto the sweat and sex-drenched bed panting with satisfaction.


	6. Making Headlines

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Four

Making Headlines

 

Tuesday, 16 July, 2002

0559 hours, Eastern Standard Time

 

“... And that concludes our news wrap up for the financial markets on this edition of the Early News on CNN. Coming up in one minute will be CNN Headline News for this morning, Tuesday, July Sixteenth. We now go to Dante Miguel, our correspondent in the Atlanta News Bureau.”

 

The familiar face of one of Cable News Network’s morning news anchors filled the screen as it had for many mornings previous. Dante Miguel was an olive-skinned and well-built athletic Hispanic from Puerto Rico.

 

“Good morning, this is CNN Headline News. I am Dante Miguel with today’s top stories. The Federal Government and the Homeland Defense Department raised the national terrorism alert status to High in the wake of three mysterious deaths of prominent Senators and Congressmen. Charles McLaughlin of New York was murdered in the Bronx during a visit approximately four days ago. And the FBI released a statement that after the Washington DC Fire Department put out a blaze in the northwest district, near Embassy Row, the charred bodies of Douglas Smithers from California and Joseph Walsh from New Jersey were discovered among the deceased. Speculation runs high that these deaths are related, but there is little evidence yet to prove it.”

 

The photos of the dead legislators were placed on a screen graphic while Dante adjusted his shirt and tie and wiped off a bead of sweat from his brow. “For breaking international news, we’re switching to Richard Van Sline in Bahrain.”

 

The scene changed from the inside of CNN Atlanta to a reporter standing outside a sprawling Naval Base in Bahrain next to a white board labeled “United States Central Command Headquarters (Forward), Bahrain”

 

“Thanks, Atlanta. This is Richard Van Sline reporting to you from the United States Central Command in Bahrain, where the entire force went on high alert at ten o’clock in the morning local time yesterday.”

 

“The first reports given to the press were surrounding an alleged ‘mishap’ during a joint Saudi-US exercise on the Iraqi border, but now Captain David Howe of the US Navy, Central Command’s chief spokesman, has called a joint press conference with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed, the commander of the Saudi National Guard, who arrived earlier today to confer with US military officials.”

 

“Speculation among the other international press sources here suggests the exercise may have turned into an engagement between friendly troops and a force of Iraqi military sent to penetrate the frontier. However, Iraq, the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have been quiet so far. We’ll have more on this later.”

 

***

 

The Pentagon

 

By the time CNN Headline News was broadcasting the information about the dead legislators and the engagement with Cobra, Tomahawk had been scrambling for at least two hours getting the authority to be copied on the details of both situations so he could decide where the Joes needed to be the most.

 

Calls had already come in from a number of sources, via the Homeland Security Agency, requesting that tactical teams of G.I. Joes be deployed to suspected terror cells in New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Washington DC, San Francisco and Los Angeles, with additional requests flooding the HSA nerve center.

 

As it stood, when the original report came from the 3rd Brigade of the 42nd Infantry Division to Central Command late the previous day, the President had immediately gone to DEFCON Three and ordered an immediate standing-up of the Division Ready Brigades of the 82nd and 101st Airborne for rapid deployment. The three elite battalions of the 75th Ranger Regiment deployed immediately, and the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command automatically shifted C-17, C-5B and C-141B airlift planes to places like Pope AFB in North Carolina and Fort Campbell in Kentucky. The first reinforcements to Central Command would be expected to touch down twenty hours after deploying.

 

The status of American forces in the Middle East at the time of the incident was that the National Guard’s 3rd Brigade of the 42nd Division was training with the Saudis, and a mixed task force of Regular Army armor, infantry, field artillery and attack helicopter units was based in Kuwait as part of the post-Gulf War American commitment.

 

Despite the mobile striking power of the airborne troops on the way, the heaviest reinforcements were staged at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and on Diego Garcia, just outside the Persian Gulf. The former had a storage facility called a POMCUS site, where enough equipment was being held to outfit a heavy armor division and an armored cavalry regiment. Diego Garcia had an Army pre-positioning set for mainly Corps Support units and heavy field artillery pieces.

 

However the tiny Indian Ocean island also had the US Navy’s Maritime Pre-Positioning Squadron One, which had in its freighters’ holds enough equipment to put an entire Marine Division on the ground with thirty days’ supplies, fuel and ammunition. All that was needed was to fly troops in to mate up with the equipment, and almost a complete US army corps of two heavy divisions and one ACR would be present to take the fight to the enemy.

 

***

 

Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, New York

44th Medical Brigade Complex, Sub-Basement Three

(G.I. Joe New York Detachment)

 

Crypto almost spilled his coffee as he watched the first few minutes of CNN Headline News, and knew Tomahawk would be chomping at the bit to get the Joe Team back into action over the breaking news. Between the unit under Flint and Beach-Head at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio and the New York outfit under Duke and Stalker, the past few weeks had consisted of long days and nights contacting Joes and getting them back to duty, as well as trying to mobilize the green shirt volunteers for action.

 

Duke walked into the small TV lounge and noticed Crypto having some trouble with his coffee cup. “Watch the furniture there, butter fingers,” he said with a serious tone. “Is everything okay, kid?”

 

“It wasn’t just McLaughlin that was taken out of play, Duke,” Crypto replied. “Two others bit the bullet in a strip club fire in DC.”

 

“I heard the bad news, and we may need your input, kid,” Duke replied, laying a hand on Crypto’s shoulder. “Stalker and I have a conference call with Flint, Beach-Head and General Tomahawk at eleven-hundred hours today. I want you there with anything you can piece together.”

 

“You got it, Top,” Crypto replied as he finally got control of his coffee and sipped at the steaming lifer’s juice.

 

***

 

Fort Hamilton, 1100 hours:

 

“Come on; pipe down, all you fucking knuckleheads!” Duke yelled over the din of the conversing ‘senior’ members of the Joe Team, motioning the assembled group to take chairs in the cramped conference room. Soon, the buzz died as the large projection screen at the head of the room lit up and the house lights went down.

 

Within moments, General Tomahawk’s face appeared on the left half of the projection screen, flanked by two familiar faces. Major General Sharpe was sitting close to Tomahawk, passing him folders and reports, and Sparks was just barely visible, hunched over a communications console. Tomahawk spoke over the video conferencing line and said, “Hello, New York. It’s good to see you troops out there. The Pentagon is online.”

 

Within moments, Dial-Tone’s gruffly bearded face filled the entire right half of the screen, eliciting gasps from some of the assembled New York troops and then muffled laughs. “We’re set now, Flint. Wright-Patterson is online with New York and Washington.”

 

Duke silenced his Joes with a wave of the hand and quipped, “Hey, Flint, I hope your technical difficulties weren’t caused by ‘ugly’ over there. His face could’ve stopped traffic on Madison Avenue!” The entire room behind Duke burst in raucous laughter.

 

“Easy does it, troops,” Tomahawk said, and the rooms in Ohio and New York fell silent. Hawk motioned to Sparks to cue up some media as he began the conference call.

 

“Okay, everyone. I know it’s been tough getting things together with less money and the new mission. Not having a Pit to call home isn’t making things easy either. But all of you are doing a bang-up job getting the new Joe Team onto its feet and sprinting off to the first race.”

 

“Unfortunately, the first race for the new Joes is here. I’m sure you all know about the recent congressional murders in New York and DC. The President has secretly activated us without Congressional knowledge or approval and given us a new combat mission...”

 

All of the Joes listened intently, as Tomahawk replayed after-action video taken at the battle site that claimed Company D of 2/102 Armor. They saw firsthand the dirty aftermath of the Cobra incursion, the burned and charred bodies of 2/102 tankers hanging over the edges of tank turrets, and the medics recovering melted, severed and broken corpses from the brewed up vehicles. The video footage was superimposed with the horrible radio transmissions during the last minutes of the battle where many of the corpses’ voices were screaming their last cries for help.

 

Tomahawk placed a hand on Sparks’ shoulder to halt the playback at a point where a knocked-out HISS III sat smoldering in the desert sand. “Cobra was behind this, and they are most likely behind the Iraqis becoming more aggressive again. The President is taking the gloves off and does not want a repeat of 1991 where we go home without a meaningful victory.”

 

The video clicked off Tomahawk’s screen and he sat in front of the video conferencing camera. “I won’t mince words with any of you. Our task will be dangerous and many of us may not come back without injury. I wouldn’t ask any of you to do something I’m not willing to do myself. I’ve agreed to go and command the mission from King Khalid Military City. Now, I want to ask for volunteers. How many of you want to take a crack at Baghdad itself?”

 

Cheers rose up in both briefing rooms, both at Wright-Pat and Fort Hamilton. There was no lack of desire to volunteer from all of the Joes attending. Tomahawk continued, “I knew you all were up for a challenge. We’ll need to do a lot of planning while in transit, so here’s what we know for now. Since you all want in on the op, along with a number of others outside this briefing, pack your gear and personal weapons. We’ll arrange to transport all the vehicles we can by air, but we have to keep the movements quiet. Chances are we’ll take over local vehicles and hardware when we arrive in Dhahran.”

 

“My initial operational concept is this: we will stage equipment and personnel in Saudi Arabia and penetrate the western half of the country. Once we get to Baghdad, we have to determine how involved Cobra is in this scheme, and light the key players up as targets for air strikes or other means of termination. If all else fails, General Colton will fire the particle beam from the Empire State Building and sign his name on Saddam’s ass, so long as we can find the right one and give Joe the right spot to shoot.”

 

As Tomahawk allowed the murmurs in the briefing rooms to die down, he raised a hand and then continued. “Okay, troops. I do need an advance team to go to King Khalid immediately to set up a nerve center. Duke, Stalker, Steeler, Scarlett, Crypto, Rock and Roll, Walkabout, Low-Light, Snake-Eyes and Kamakura will form the initial element, along with a couple squads of Green Shirts. I’ll see you there with the main force in Dhahran. The advance team needs to leave in eighteen hours from McGuire AFB. Good luck team... YO-JOE!”

 

Both briefing rooms erupted in the Joe battle cry... “YO-JOE!” and then dozens of small conversations broke out as the video conference concluded.

 

***

 

Baghdad, Iraq:

 

Destro sat across from Saddam and Cobra Commander in the office chamber of the Presidential Palace, delivering a report as the Baroness looked on, gently stroking Destro’s leg underneath the table.

 

“The report from Task Force Anaconda was most positive, Commander,” Destro began, playfully swatting the Baroness’ hand away when she slid it too far up his thigh. “They did wipe out a border post of the Saudi Arabian National Guard, and an unmanned CLAW photo-recon glider got us a count on the American unit that engaged our column.”

 

Destro motioned to the Baroness, who passed over copies of the film strip taken by the remote controlled CLAW. “We engaged a company and scout platoon from an M-1 Abrams tank battalion. Compared to our relatively light losses, we wiped them completely out.”

 

The Baroness then turned to address the two leaders. “From our SIGINT interception unit, we have caught enough American radio traffic between the US Central Command HQ in Bahrain and the Pentagon in Washington DC that they have already begun their contingency plans to reinforce the Arabian Peninsula. We must step up our campaign to destabilize the American Congress so that it cannot vote to support the President when he decides to declare war on Iraq and Cobra. The delay will cripple American plans to place troops here long enough for your armies to sweep the peninsula. A successful campaign on our part would require the US President to invoke the War Powers Act to defeat a Congressional reluctance to declare war.”

 

“What other information do you have?” Hussein asked of the silver-masked arms dealer and the Cobra intelligence officer.

 

Destro nodded and shuffled some reports to answer the dictator’s question. “As to our own operations, we have already snuck over three thousand of the fifteen thousand Cobra troops committed into the country. Reserves on Cobra Island and many of our other secret locations are prepared to move here upon immediate orders from the Commander. Our detachments are establishing our facilities and assembly lines with your Industrial Minister and the mobile training teams have deployed to the camps of your army divisions and Republican Guard formations. Trans-shipment of materials through al-Basra is progressing, and we have posted a submarine in the Persian Gulf to escort our freighters in and out so the NATO patrols don’t stop and search them.”

 

“Very well,” Hussein nodded with a smile. “I shall issue orders for my primary army corps to begin moving south.”

 

***

 

Somewhere in the Persian Gulf:

 

U.S.S. Rodney M. Davis FFG-60

‘Oliver Hazard Perry’-class Guided Missile Frigate

 

Lieutenant Commander David Griggs, the Executive Officer of the Rodney M. Davis, stood on the ‘flying wing’ of the bridge with binoculars in hand. As the senior watch officer, he was temporarily in charge of the safety and combat readiness of the guided missile frigate that pitched and rolled in the azure blue waters of the Persian Gulf.

 

The sun burned hot in the daytime air, but the overall temperatures in the waters of the Gulf were much better than on the desert sands just to the east in Iran or to the west in the United Arab Emirates.

 

While the XO was in command of FFG-60’s patrol route, he kept a ‘talker’ close by. The talker was an enlisted seaman who hung onto the ship’s telephone and relayed information while the officer of the bridge watch was out of earshot of the pilothouse where the helmsman and navigator worked.

 

“XO, Combat is on the line,” the talker reported as he listened to the sound-powered telephone. “Combat has a new submerged contact, designate Master Two-three. It’s a submarine just below the thermals and transiting the Gulf in the freedom of navigation channels.”

 

“Shit,” the XO cursed. He leaned inside the bridge to the maneuvering room and barked out orders to the bridge crew. “Sound yellow alert and man battle stations torpedo. Rouse the Seahawk crews and fuel the birds. Order Combat to start a track on Master Two-three and get her classification. Come right to heading zero-zero-zero and make turns for flank speed. I want to see if we can scare this guy out of our patrol area.”

 

***

 

Cobra Submarine

“Cottonmouth III”

 

“Down scope! Adjust to new heading three-four-five and make turns for six knots! Dive and make your depth four hundred twenty feet, ten degrees down bubble. Prepare to rendezvous with the track of our Cobra freighters and provide escort to the al-Basra port complex.”

 

The bearded Captain of Cottonmouth III sat in his commander’s chair in the cramped control room of the Cobra attack submarine, as his crew dutifully repeated his orders and then executed them. His Chief of the Boat, the senior enlisted man in the crew and assistant diving officer, personally supervised the helm and maneuvering team as the large submarine slowly navigated the depths of the Persian Gulf.

 

Studying the marked-up charts of the area for the safe passages, the captain checked his logbook for the arrival time of the Cobra freighters he was expected to lead into the al-Basra port facility. As he did, one of the speakers on the intercom console came to life.

 

“Conn from Sonar. I have a change in aspect and speed on surface contact thirty-four. Plant noise and hull popping sounds indicate a frigate at flank speed. Her props are cavitating. I think she spotted us trying to belly in under the Liberian supertanker.”

 

“All hands to action stations,” the captain ordered calmly. “Rig for silent running and reduce turns to four knots. Maintain original course and take a bathythermograph reading. Cue the helm and dive control stations to put us right in the temperature gradient below periscope depth until she’s close enough to identify.”

 

All of the bright white lights in the Cobra sub dimmed to red or blue and many of the crew cautiously returned to their bunks to observe the silent running order as the alert bells tinkled in all of the underway compartments.

 

***

 

U.S.S. Rodney M. Davis FFG-60

 

The Executive Officer had returned from the bridge wing to the main pilothouse where he could be in voice contact with Combat and also issue maneuver commands for the frigate. He picked up the 8-MC, the main circuit telephone that connected with all of the Combat Division spaces, including radar, sonar and the weapons stations.

 

“Combat, this is the bridge. What’s the status on Sierra Two-three?” Sierra was an alternate term used by sonar operators to designate a submerged contact.

 

“Bridge from Combat. We had a brief aspect change on the contact which would indicate a turning, but then we lost her below a passing supertanker. She may have gone silent.”

 

The XO nodded his understanding and studied the depth charts for the area his frigate was steaming into. It was a fairly shallow coastal zone with one deep channel where the main merchant route ran. A sub could hide below the thermal layers in the water or go deep to the bottom of the trench. Noises made by the machinery plants of the commercial ships passing above would mask the sub even more if she did go silent.

 

Lieutenant Joseph Williams was the Junior Officer of the Deck during the day watch and served as the Exec’s assistant. He was a fellow officer in one of the ship’s command divisions. Lieutenant Williams read the charts over as well to give the Exec his suggestions. “Commander Griggs, we have no choice. If we want to get a classification on Sierra Two-three, we have to ping her actively and try to fix her position for a good solid datum.”

 

“What do you suggest, Lieutenant Williams?” the senior surface warfare officer asked.

 

Williams traced his finger along the projected track of the submarine. “The contours of the channel are a textbook engagement zone for a close-quarters search pattern, one that our ship can handle on her own. We fly the Seahawks out ahead of us and drop lines of sonobuoys to cut off his potential escape routes. Then the SH-60’s dipping sonars and our hull sonar can triangulate her position and we can sit on her until she surfaces to make the approach to al-Basra’s arrival channel.”

 

The Lieutenant also produced a tidal chart for the channel. “Because of the natural eddies and tidal movements in this area, she can’t go more than say four knots in order to stay silent. Any faster speeds will churn up the contours in her prop wash and make a whole orchestra’s worth of noise for us to pick up.”

 

Williams drew a sketch on the laminated plotting chart with dry-erase markers. “I would execute a standard pattern search with the Seahawks ahead of us and man ASW battle stations. Granted, we’re not shooting at each other yet, just trying to fix the submarine, but I wouldn’t take any chances.”

 

“I agree,” the frigate’s XO replied. “If she’s an Iranian diesel, then she has every right to be here on coastal patrol. If she’s joining the Iraqi Navy in al-Basra, then Headquarters will want to know everything about her.” The XO laid his marking pen down on the navigation chart. “Alert the skipper, continue current maneuvering orders and get the Seahawks warmed up on deck. Also have the triple launchers for our Mark 46 torpedoes made ready and load the three-inch gun. Keep anti-aircraft missiles on the launch rail in case the Iraqi Air Force decides to over-fly us.”

 

The JOOD nodded and replied, “Aye, aye, Commander.” He then walked off to issue the orders to the bridge crew and Combat departments.

 

***

 

Cobra Submarine

“Cottonmouth III”

 

“Conn from Sonar. Target identified. Periscope imaging snapshot shows contact thirty-four is a warship. She’s American, an Oliver Hazard Perry class guided missile frigate. I would make a good guess that she picked up on us and is moving to flush us out.”

 

The captain rubbed his beard thoughtfully and studied the depth and tidal charts of the area. He picked up the microphone at his intercom station and called the ship’s communications chief. “Tele-Viper, extend the very low frequency antenna and contact Cobra Commander in Baghdad. Report our status and ask if our standing orders still apply. Alert me as soon as the reply EAM comes in.”

 

***

 

Baghdad, Iraq:

 

A Tele-Viper quickly ran into an antechamber where Destro and the Baroness were enjoying a light lunch. He fearfully stood at attention and saluted.

 

“Destro! We have flash traffic from the submarine ‘Cottonmouth III’. They are requesting instructions on whether to engage an American frigate that seems to be tracking them.”

 

“The fool captain has compromised his submarine’s stealth and drawn the attention of an American boat?” Destro asked angrily. The Tele-Viper simply nodded. “The Americans must not find out the Cottonmouth III is one of ours. It’s bad enough that they were able to capture some components of our HISS III tanks from Task Force Anaconda. If the American frigate is able to fix the Cottonmouth III, have the captain obliterate the American ship.”

 

“As you command, Destro.” The Tele-Viper left the room, already recording Destro’s orders for transmission out on the ELF communications system.

 

***

 

U.S.S. Rodney M. Davis FFG-60

 

“Combat to bridge. Sierra Two-three is fixed and plotted! She’s eight thousands yards off our port bow on heading three-three-five! The computer is still chewing on her classification profile!”

 

“Bridge, aye,” Commander Griggs replied on the 8-MC. He switched the intercom over to the 1-MC channel, which repeated his words in speakers all over the ship. “Bridge to all personnel, man battle stations torpedo! Battle stations! Battle stations! Launch both Seahawks for submarine intercept!”

 

Klaxons and alert sounds rang in all the spaces of FFG-60 while the crew scrambled to man their battle stations. Within five minutes, all of the watertight hatches were sealed, weapons were manned, and the damage control watches had been set in the frigate’s essential spaces.

 

Ten minutes after the battle stations order was issued, the first of Rodney M. Davis’ two SH-60B Advanced Capability Seahawks lifted off the fantail flight deck and surged ahead of the speeding frigate. Twelve minutes after the alarms sounded, the second helicopter left the rocking flight deck and grabbed sky.

 

Once the helicopters were away, Combat called the Exec. “Combat to Bridge, Seahawks One and Two have cleared the flight deck.”

 

“Bridge, aye,” Commander Griggs acknowledged. He turned to Lieutenant Williams. “JOOD, make the appropriate entries in the log book and take a flash message for HQCENTCOM in Bahrain down to the radio shack. Also copy Seventh Fleet in Sigonella. All departments are to follow standard engagement procedures but do not fire unless ordered.”

 

***

 

Cobra Submarine

“Cottonmouth III”

 

“Conn from Sonar! American frigate is approaching at flank speed, seven thousand yards and closing!”

 

The captain decided there was no choice but to fight it out with the Rodney M. Davis. “Helmsman, come about to new heading one-eight-zero. Diving officer, maintain zero bubble and slowly blow the tanks until we’re about two hundred feet depth. Man all battle stations. Load torpedo tubes one through six, flood the tubes and open outer doors.”

 

The giant red stylized Cobra head on the Cottonmouth III looked like it was lowering its jaw to strike, as the submarine’s six bow torpedo tubes were loaded and prepared to fire. Soon, the sub began to rise as her rudder turned her towards the frigate to more rapidly close to torpedo firing range.

 

***

 

U.S.S. Rodney M. Davis FFG-60

 

“Combat to Bridge, sonar reports an aspect change based on bearing rate. The sub’s executing a Crazy Ivan!” The Crazy Ivan was technically a submariner’s term for a rapid course change, often used to clear the sound baffles of a boat and to determine if a pursuer was close by. The Davis’ sonar plotter had made a mistake in his assessment, though.

 

“Combat to Bridge, belay last report. Sierra Two-Three has executed a one-eighty and is now approaching us at about five knots. Range has closed to four thousand yards, and we’ll be in torpedo range in about three minutes. Seahawks One and Two are ready to block their northern escape route.”

 

“Very well Combat,” LCDR Griggs replied. “Has the skipper arrived?”

 

“Affirmative, XO. Commander Wilkes is in Combat and instructs you to continue running the engagement.”

 

“Weapons to Bridge, both mark sixteen triple tubes are loaded and ready. Three-inch gun, CIWS and main launcher battery are green boards and ready to fire.”

 

“Counter-measures to Bridge, Torpedo decoy racks are ready and the Nixie is streamed!”

 

“Bridge, aye. All hands, prepare to engage the submarine if she doesn’t heave to and surface!”

 

***

 

Cobra Submarine

“Cottonmouth III”

 

“Conn from Sonar! Sound short, entry of one small object into the water astern. Now there’s a second entry of small object. We have aircraft releasing sonobuoys behind us!”

 

“Damn it to hell!” the captain frowned. “Their SH-60’s are waiting over the line of sonobuoys with Mark forty-six torpedoes in case their parent frigate doesn’t stop us.” The submarine skipper grabbed his sound powered phone. “Weapons, plot an immediate firing solution on the American frigate! Sonar, advise the Conn when she is inside our torpedo envelope!”

 

“Conn from Sonar! The frigate just entered our torpedo envelope! Firing solution has been plotted and uploaded to the torpedoes!”

 

The captain took a look into his periscope to see if he could make out the raked steel and aluminum hull of the frigate bearing down on them. He knew it was out there, trying to force him to surface. “Firing point procedures! Launch tubes one and two!”

 

The metallic groan of the torpedo launchers’ compressed air ejector systems shook the entire sub as the first pair of torpedoes left their tubes and swam on their own.

 

***

 

U.S.S. Rodney M. Davis FFG-60

 

“Bridge from Sonar! Two high-speed screws! Torpedoes in the water! Bearing three-five-five and three-five-seven! The Russian Type 53’s are two thousand yards out at thirty-five knots!”

 

“Helmsman, turn hard to starboard! Make turns for flank speed!” Commander Griggs ordered. “Counter-measures, fire up the Nixie! Port torpedo battery, fire two fish along the reciprocal headings!”

 

As two pre-programmed Mark 46 torpedoes were ejected from the Rodney M. Davis into the water, the Nixie began to make mechanical noise and released large amounts of bubbles. As a means of passive defense, the Nixie made enough noise to confound an incoming torpedo which looked for the strongest noise source or pressure variance in the water. A hard turn by a ship while churning its screws at full speed left a pressure ‘knuckle’ in the wake that also drew away an enemy’s fish.

 

Both of the Cobra submarine’s shots were confused by the Rodney M. Davis’ protective maneuvering and the Nixie and harmlessly exploded deep in the channel when their chemical propellant fuel ran out.

 

***

 

Cobra Submarine

“Cottonmouth III”

 

“Conn from Sonar! Two high-speed screws on a reciprocal course! American torpedoes in the water!”

 

“Crash Dive!” the captain ordered. “Dive, dive, dive! Make your depth five hundred feet, blow all ballast tanks and set the planes to forty degrees down bubble! All ahead flank speed! Cavitate the props!” Emergency bells sounded throughout the sub as her nuclear plant surged power through the gas turbine propulsion system.

 

“Conn from Sonar! Torpedoes are bearing one-seven-nine and one-eight-zero! Seven hundred yards at fifty knots! The fishes’ active sonar is pinging us, and I believe they’re homing!”

 

The captain took a quick time hack with a stopwatch and did some quick figuring on possible time to impact. “Launch five-inch evasion devices! Launch one set of counter-measures!”

 

From ports along the rear casing of the submarine, two chemically charged canisters fell from the submarine and began to react with the surrounding salt water. The decoy canisters began to tumble and release bubbles as the sub tried to dive to safety.

 

***

 

U.S.S. Rodney M. Davis FFG-60

 

“Combat to Bridge, we missed her! The sub did a crash dive and launched decoys!”

 

“Bridge to Combat, wheel us around and have the Seahawks dip their sonars below the thermocline. Weapons, ready starboard torpedo launcher.”

 

The gray missile frigate heeled around at full speed and leaned into her turn as she reversed course and bore down on the submarine’s last known position. This fight was becoming up close and personal for both sides.

 

A few miles to the north, Seahawk One left its patrol station and moved south to dip its sonar into the water to try and ping the sub. Hovering right over the whitecaps, the helicopter’s oblong dipping sonar was winched down until all the cable played out.

 

“Seahawk One to Fantail,” the helicopter pilot reported to the frigate. “We’re unzipped and the dick’s in the water. We’re scanning actively at about four hundred feet.” The ‘dick’ was salty Sailor talk for the ‘dip’ or dipping sonar, at least among the Seahawk crews. The flight director on “Fantail” (the frigate’s radio call sign) didn’t often enjoy the use of such terms.

 

The in-flight systems operator, a young Avionics Technician, listened intently to the sonar pings as he studied the round scope at his station. He became excited when a strong echo suddenly came over his earphones. “Pilot from Systems. I have a definite fix on Sierra Two-three. She’s four hundred feet deep and approximately three thousand yards from the dick. Her hull is popping; looks like the boat’s coming shallow to attack again.”

 

“Roger that, Seahawk One. We’ll be ready!” Commander Griggs acknowledged. “Helmsman, turn new course zero-zero-five and maintain flank speed. Ready all torpedo tubes for another try at Sierra Two-three.”

 

***

 

Cobra Submarine

“Cottonmouth III”

 

“Up Periscope!” the captain ordered as he flipped down the handles of the device. He scanned the water’s surface as the submarine settled at a depth of seventy-five feet, the normal depth where the periscope can be used without the whole boat riding on the surface. “Weapons, plot a new solution for torpedoes three through six. Also warm up the vertical missile launchers. Let’s see if we can overkill this son of a bitch.”

 

“Sir, is it wise to prep all of our vertical launchers?” the Weapons officer asked. “We only have the four launch tubes with Anti-Ship missiles. “To fire them all at once may leave us without our key striking power.”

 

“I have my orders from Cobra Commander, Lieutenant!” the captain yelled in frustration. “Follow my orders and have tubes one and two reloaded!” The captain thoughtfully scanned the surface for the zigzagging frigate or the owner of the dipping sonar that kept actively pinging his boat.

 

After a few three-hundred-sixty degree sweeps, the captain finally spotted the frigate coming out of the mist of the splashing waves. “Sonar, do you have the bearing and range on the frigate?” the captain asked.

 

“Conn from Sonar. Range is eleven hundred yards, bearing three-four-five and in our torpedo envelope. Weapons station reports all four Exocets are programmed and ready.”

 

“Very well, Sonar,” the captain replied on the hands-free intercom. “Weapons officer, launch all Exocets. Fire torpedo tubes three through six in a five-degree spread pattern with safety ranges set to zero.”

 

The Weapons officer became frightened at the captain’s torpedo order. “But sir, the weapons will be armed in the tubes! One glitch in the spread programming and we may kill ourselves!”

 

The captain ran over to the torpedo firing station and grabbed the Weapons officer by his jumpsuit collar. “God damn you, follow my fucking orders!” He tossed the officer into the arms of another crew member and punched at the firing buttons himself. “COBRAAA!”

 

The submarine shuddered again from stem to stern as the compressed air launchers blasted their torpedoes into the water. She also vibrated heavily from the vertical launches of four missile canisters from ports on the submarine’s spine, which floated quickly to the surface.

 

As each canister broached the water, fluid density sensors set off explosive bolts to split away the container’s housing, and a programmed actuator fired the Exocet anti-shipping missile contained inside.

 

Once the weapons were launched, the captain was in no mood to stick around. “Helmsman, lay in a new course to the al-Basra Channel. Make turns for flank speed! We’re gonna bust through that sonobuoy line for our safe harbor!”

 

***

 

U.S.S. Rodney M. Davis FFG-60

 

“Combat to Bridge! Four low altitude contacts inbound at high speed from bearing three-one-five! Four torpedoes inbound as well from same bearing!”

 

Gasps came from the bridge crewmen that could hear the Combat station reporting. Commander Griggs was also sweating profusely at the odds the Cobra submarine had set against him. The only thing possible to do was to shoot back and order the Seahawks to drop torpedoes and find a safe airfield on land.

 

“Advise Seahawks One and Two that they may be on their own. Fire all available torpedoes on the reverse bearing! Engage the sea-skimmers with the Phalanx CIWS! Sound the collision alarm and get the damage control teams to the equipment lockers!”

 

Just in front of the Rodney M. Davis’ bridge, a pivoting column with a large white dome turned to face down the speeding Exocets. A six-barreled assembly began to spin and flames shot out of the high-rate-of-fire Phalanx gun as the dome radar guided the Close-In Weapon System in its hunt for the enemy missiles. Air bursts of high explosive shells from the three-inch gun were also tried in order to shoot the missiles down before they could do any damage.

 

As the guns were defending the frigate, she was turning again and using the Nixie, as well as additional counter-measures canisters to try and throw off the brace of Cobra torpedoes. The defensive systems crew was trying their best to put as much noise out in the water as they could to confound the torpedoes and run them out of propellant.

 

As luck would have it, only one torpedo and one Exocet actually hit the Rodney M. Davis. However, the damage wasn’t easily shouldered off.

 

The excited voice of the Damage Control officer soon filled the speakers of the Bridge as the damage reports were collected. “Damage Control to Bridge! The missile took out our stack and primary radio room! The torpedo exploded just below our keel and punched a huge hole in Engine Room One and the port side fuel bunker! We have major failures in the electrical systems aft of frame three-thirty-five on all lower decks, and a turbo-generator is out! We evacuated twelve engineering division and five radio room casualties to the sick bay!”

 

The DAMCON officer paused to catch his breath and then continued. “We’re taking about two thousand gallons of water a minute into the engine room and the gas turbine is on fire! We need to transfer all power demands to Engine Room Two and seal off the compartments around here! Evacuation pumps are running forward of frame three-thirty-five and we have emergency bilge pumps in place in the dead power area. There’s a party trying to ascertain whether we have a fire in the fuel bunker or not. I’ll get back to you!”

 

Commander Griggs slammed his fist on the chart table. With one of the gas turbines out and electrical problems on the ship, there was a chance his weapons were disabled, and the frigate would be lucky to make ten knots. Knowing the torpedo exploded below the keel also meant that stresses on the metal frame of the ship might snap her in two at any time.

 

***

 

Cobra Submarine

“Cottonmouth III”

 

“Conn, Sonar! Six inbound torpedoes close aboard! Four hundred yards astern! They’ve locked onto our cavitation and are homing!”

 

“Sound collision alarms!” the captain yelled through the control room. “Emergency blow! Put us on the roof so we don’t get buried! Forty degrees up bubble, full rise on the dive planes!”

 

The Cottonmouth III arced up smoothly as her engines strained to push the submarine up to the water’s surface. Two of the Rodney M. Davis’ torpedoes exploded just behind the tail, and one amidships near the main ballast tanks, but the boat had enough momentum to drive her up to the surface.

 

Atop the azure blue Persian Gulf, the somewhat tranquil shipping lanes were disrupted by a large white wave, followed by the teardrop-shaped hull of the Cottonmouth III hitting the roof. The evil red stylized cobra on her bow burst forth from the water like a striking cobra on land.

 

“Captain! DAMCON reports we’ve lost the main rudder and the dive planes on the sail. We have a large hole in the port ballast tank and trim is off. The enemy fish also tore loose our starboard shaft. We’re still floatable, but we can’t do more than four knots and it has to be on the surface.”

 

“That’s alright, DAMCON officer,” the captain replied. “Weapons officer, raise and uncork the deck gun and put the deck division’s men outside the casing with SA-19 missiles. Load stern tubes six through ten.”

 

The normally smooth casing of the Cottonmouth III, optimized to be as quiet under water as possible, soon changed shape as a large watertight compartment slid open and the submarine’s three-inch deck gun was raised up out of it. While for most contemporary submarines, a deck gun was long passé, Cobra boats were outfitted for every eventuality.

 

Casing hatches sprung open, as the sailors of the submarine’s deck division scrambled out of the submarine. Two pairs of men set themselves on the pitching deck, looking skyward with portable surface to air missiles, while the remainder unlatched the safety locks on the deck gun and pointed it towards the approaching American frigate.

 

***

 

U.S.S. Rodney M. Davis FFG-60

 

“Seahawk One to Fantail! Enemy submarine is surfacing! Oh my God, what the hell is that thing?!?”

 

The pilot of Seahawk One turned to get the attention of his crew chief. “Chief Anders! Rig the minigun! The sub has surfaced!”

 

“Fantail to Seahawk One; we’re still able to maneuver but taking on water fast! We’ll engage Master Two-three with the main gun! Stand off and be ready to torpedo her if she tries to dive again!”

 

From the edge of the frigate’s gun range, her three-inch gun battery barked fire and spat flame as the weapon threw high-velocity explosive rounds at the Cottonmouth III. The first couple shots were directed by eye and splashed harmlessly into the Persian Gulf. Splashes began to fall around the Rodney M. Davis as well, as the submarine’s deck gun began to fire in response.

 

The Rodney M. Davis scored the first hit of the gun duel, blasting a giant hole in the submarine’s sail and insuring she couldn’t dive again. But the submarine gave as well as she took, scoring direct hits on the pilothouse, CIWS gun and forward missile launcher, killing the primary bridge crew and taking out the frigate’s only protection against aircraft and missiles.

 

Down in Combat, Commander Wilkes held his headphones away as the screams of the pilothouse crew came over the 8-MC. He quickly organized the emergency maneuvering team in the backup control room and put new lookouts on deck as he hoped to find a safe place to abandon ship and get his men safely off the frigate.

 

“Weapons from Combat! Bridge is off the air! Skipper is taking command! Keep firing the three-inch gun!” Commander Wilkes rested a hand on one of the radar operators in Combat. “Order Seahawks One and Two to engage the enemy and then find a safe landing field.”

 

“DAMCON to Combat, damage is worse than we expected! There’s a fire traveling between the two fuel bunkers and we can’t control it! Flooding is partly under control, but we’ve lost trim and are down ten degrees to the stern. Electrical power to the stern sections is still out and we could lose Engine Room Two anytime. The worst news is we have cracks in the spar, keel and frame. If we hog more than five degrees or take another fish below the waterline, the hull will snap in half and the ship will sink in five minutes!”

 

Aboard Seahawk One, the pilot nodded as he acknowledged the last radio call from Fantail. “Okay, boys, here’s the deal. We have to knock that sub out for good. On my command, we’ll drop our fish close aboard and then watch the fireworks. Seahawk Two will drop right behind us. They have crew on deck, so keep that minigun rolling hot, Chief Anders. After we drop, we’re going to land in Bahrain. Fantail might not make it back to base.”

 

***

 

Seahawk One dove for the surfaced Cottonmouth III, leveling off at one hundred fifty feet. The pilot eyeballed the distance to the sub, and had the torpedo safeties set to zero. “Systems Operator, by my command, drop, drop, drop!”

 

The Seahawk’s torpedoes fell from mounting pylons underneath the fixed landing gear of the helicopter and were easily plunked into the water with a braking chute. A satisfying explosion on the water line sent Cobra crewmen scurrying and submarine began to list to one side. Seahawk Two, flying in behind Seahawk One, couldn’t get its torpedoes off in time before a Cobra SA-19 portable SAM blew it out of the sky.

 

“Son of a bitch! Chief Anders, put their fucking heads down!” yelled the pilot of Seahawk One as he swept the helicopter across the deck of the Cottonmouth III. Anders triggered the minigun mounted in the cWilliamsr’s side door and was able to strafe the deck gun crew, dropping three of the Lampreys into the water.

 

The copilot jabbed the pilot and shouted, “Missile alert!” as the second SA-19 team fired their command-detonated missile. It flew right into the crew compartment of Seahawk One and detonated in the systems operator’s station. The resultant explosion split the cWilliamsr in two and the burning parts rained down on the water.

 

Aboard the Cottonmouth III, the captain was running with all the submarine had left in her. The sonar operator had passed along the dreaded news that the Rodney M. Davis, even on the one working turbine engine, was capable of higher speed than they were, and was approaching again. The good news was the frigate’s airborne friends were taken out of play and no longer posed a threat.

 

“Weapons, fire our aft torpedoes in a five degree spread. Fire all tubes!” The Cottonmouth III fired off four torpedoes as her parting shot while she steamed as fast as possible for al-Basra.

 

***

 

U.S.S. Rodney M. Davis FFG-60

 

“Combat from Sonar! Both Seahawks are down in the drink and we have four more fish inbound! There’s no response to the helm!”

 

Commander Wilkes knew there were no choices left. He raised his microphone and keyed the 1-MC, broadcasting his message all through the frigate. “Attention all hands! All personnel that are able are to launch lifeboats and abandon ship! This is the skipper, all hands abandon ship!”

 

Wilkes dropped the microphone limply to the floor and ran out of Combat, climbing the torn and burned stairwell to the pilothouse. As he watched his sailors and officers running for the ship rails with life jackets on, he spotted the four trails of white flotsam that marked the torpedoes’ wakes. As explosions from all four fish rocked the Rodney M. Davis, finally snapping her keel in two, Wilkes held up a depth chart and knew the water was deep enough for the wreck not to block the merchant ships after sinking.

 

Roiling in white foamy bubbles as air pockets and burning fuel expelled gases into the water, the bow and stern of the frigate quickly lifted from the water as the amidships section took on torrents of water and weighed the ship halves down. In less than five minutes, the Rodney M. Davis became a permanent watery grave for over a hundred sixty sailors.


	7. Rhinebeck

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter 4.5

(Rated NC-17)

 

Monday, 15 July, 2002

Rhinebeck, New York

Rhine Cliff Bridge Motor Inn

 

***

 

The town of Rhinebeck, New York was a very small, very quiet place. Even locals joked that tourists calling the town ‘sleepy’ were doing it a huge favor. It was the sheer boredom and solitude that made Rhinebeck an ideal place for Cobra to establish a safe house for their agents to escape to and lie low.

 

The local Crimson Guards, a matched couple posing as married folk, ran the Rhine Cliff Bridge Motor Inn, a small rinky-dink single story motel that had been restored from its original 1950’s art deco vintage over and over. The motor inn’s current “book owner”, Extensive Enterprises, didn’t do much better than the previous owners in feeding money into maintenance and improvements. As such, the two Siegies assigned there always had their work cut out for them keeping the place running smoothly.

 

Although they worked well together, and appeared to have a natural liking for each other despite being forced to play at being married, Fred 308 and Jane 277 seemed to argue like an old wedded couple behind closed doors. It was mainly out of frustration and the lack of having anyone else they could confide in that they dumped much of their emotional baggage about the posting on each other.

 

When Zarana and Bloodpool arrived as guests of the hotel, nothing at all went the Siegies’ way. They tried putting the two up in separate rooms, until orders came down from Cobra Commander forcing the two visiting agents to “play couple” while they were in seclusion. That seemed to increase the tension significantly, especially since Zarana was being very bossy and hated sharing her private space with anyone, let alone the voyeuristic Bloodpool.

 

Then, to make matters worse, the ‘hotel curse’ that the Siegies normally laughed at or seethed about reared its ugly head, and Zarana and Bloodpool were the unfortunate victims of the resulting mishaps. They changed rooms four times when random pipes exploded or accoutrements malfunctioned, the latest and worst case happening when Zarana was in the shower that Monday morning and the hot water feed broke in the room’s utility line.

 

Zarana screamed like a banshee when the ice cold water hit her naked flesh, and then she cursed a blue streak when she ran for towels and warmth, only to run right into Fred 308 trying to access the water cutoff from the hallway to prevent a flood. Although Fred swore up one side and down the other that Zarana was covered enough for him not to see her buxom body, his mere presence earned him a black eye.

 

***

 

1700 hours, local time

 

Events seemed to have calmed by five o’clock Monday evening, and Jane 277 was manning her normal spot at the hotel’s front desk, waiting for the diner across the highway to bring over take-out meals for herself and Fred 308, and their ‘distinguished guests’. She had planned to lock up right after the delivery, so that she and Fred might get some decent sleep before having to make their twice-weekly report to the Crimson Guard Commanders in the morning.

 

As much as the food was running late for some reason, so was Fred. He had said he was going to the Home Depot in Kingston, about twenty minutes away, to obtain a few lengths of pipe and other plumbing repair materials for the hot water line before packing it in himself for the day. Jane surmised that he, like most other patrons of the large hardware discount store, were tied up in long lines waiting for service.

 

The food finally arrived at seven, and Fred 308 was right behind the dinner’s arrival. Although exhausted from the hectic events of the day, he helped Jane set out a long folding table in the lobby and drew the blinds so the four Cobras could eat in a place with some elbow room and not feel so cramped.

 

After a few moments, Zarana, clad in a loosely-tied bathrobe, entered the lobby to sit down to eat. She was followed moments later by Bloodpool, who had been running his civilian clothes through the laundry so he had clean things to wear while waiting for their new orders.

 

Fred and Jane took opposite ends of the folding table, and Bloodpool and Zarana sat across from each other. All of the agents present could tell Bloodpool wasn’t used to being cooped up in such an out-of-the-way locale where there was so little to do.

 

The dinner fun began right away, as Zarana leaned down to get comfortable in her folding chair and flashed Bloodpool a little too much of her cleavage. She could see Bloodpool’s eyes widen as he shifted his head slightly to catch the best view, and kicked the sniper hard in the shins to make him flash back to reality.

 

“You god damn bloody wanker,” Zarana cursed in her normal Cockney accent. “I swear I can’t stand that every time you look at me it’s like you’re praying that one of my tits is gonna fall out or somethin’... It sucks enough that I can’t sleep in the buff because your dumb ass is in the room! Keep your fucking eyes to yourself!”

 

Bloodpool let a shit-eating grin form on his face, a look of victory at even catching a glimpse of Zarana’s flesh. He had discovered the old keyholes in the bathroom doors could be peeped through earlier in the morning and would have gotten the full show if the hot water problem hadn’t come about. As it was, he nearly missed getting caught when Zarana had come charging out of the shower.

 

Zarana gave up on trying to get Bloodpool’s gaze off of her chest and decided to ignore him and eat her meal. But even that was tough to do. “Jesus, does the cook over at the greasy spoon only know how to make badly burned fried chicken and foul smelling meatloaf? Whatever happened to eating normal food in this town?”

 

Bloodpool was gobbling away hungrily at the fried chicken and meatloaf, along with the side dishes that had been sent along. “I don’t see anything wrong with the food. I’ve learned that out in the battlefield, beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to survival.”

 

Zarana shook her head disgustedly. “I swear, Bloodpool, you’re one sick, sorry sonofabitch. Don’t you dare fucking get sick in our room tonight after eating this sewage!”

 

Jane looked apologetically at Zarana as a glance at Fred 308’s face turning green indicated that their entire meal was somehow less than ideal. She pushed her chair back with a squeak and walked over to the front desk to find the phone book. “I don’t know what happened, folks. It’ll take some time, but I can get us some pizzas from a place in Kingston. They don’t deliver though.”

 

After retrieving the local yellow pages listings, Jane batted her eyelashes at Fred, who was chugging down glass after glass of water to keep from hurling the foul-tasting meatloaf he had ingested by mistake. “I hate to ask, Fred honey, but could you go get the pizzas after I order them?”

 

Fred’s eyes turned dark. He was already frustrated by so many things that day. Poor Jane had unwittingly delivered the straw to break the camel’s proverbial back. Not bothering to be genteel about it, he kicked his folding chair out from under him and stormed into the one-bedroom apartment that the couple shared behind the office, mumbling angrily. Jane shook her head sadly and followed Fred to offer him a private apology and some solace.

 

Bloodpool looked up, wiping large drops of sauce and gravy from his lips where they had collected and looked in Zarana’s direction, mainly at her breasts and the food on her plate. “Damn, Fred needs to shelve that bad attitude! Hey, Zarana, are you going to eat that?”

 

Zarana shook her head, wrapped her bathrobe tightly over her chest to cover herself and shoved her plate in front of Bloodpool as she focused on the muffled sounds of yelling behind the closed door of the Siegies’ tiny apartment. Soon, Fred 308 charged out the door, mumbling the words “fucking bitch” under his breath. He didn’t even stop to acknowledge Zarana and Bloodpool as he exited the lobby’s front door and loudly slammed or kicked everything along the way to his car.

 

Zarana got to her feet and went into the Siegies’ apartment, leaving Bloodpool to his disgusting eating habits. She quietly shut the door and made sure all the locks were set. Jane had her back to Zarana, as she was quietly wiping away a tear from her face and trying to pick up her and Fred’s Siegie uniforms, helmets and small arms, which had spilled out of the hidden panel of an upturned steamer trunk during the argument.

 

Jane was surprised and startled when Zarana gently laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Zarana,” Jane apologized as she turned to face the Drednok spy. “Fred’s probably going to cool off for a while and then he’ll bring back the pizzas.”

 

“I wouldn’t worry about it, Jane,” Zarana replied in a soft, sisterly voice. “I guess that’s what long-term cabin fever looks like, huh?”

 

Jane shook her head and finished wiping away her tears. “It’s not usually that bad. We’ve been good together and have trusted each other for years at this posting. The squabbles are mainly out of frustration at the circumstances; but we are still able to keep up our deception and perform our duty to Cobra. We’ve really begun to like being together, the married cover notwithstanding.”

 

Zarana gazed at a picture of Fred that was standing on a night table. “Well, Fred seems a lot more volatile than you. He doesn’t hurt you, does he? I swear I’ll gut him painfully and chop his cock off right now if he does.”

 

Jane shook her head while she kneeled on the floor, folding up the uniforms neatly and setting them back in the steamer trunk. “No, he makes sure to take it out on anything but me. He knows that if there’s a complaint or our cover is broken by police involvement, Tomax and Xamot will handle him personally, if they don’t order me to eliminate him. But thanks for the vote of support.”

 

Zarana smiled, running her fingers through Jane’s shoulder-length hair. “We ladies have to look out for one another at times. Why don’t you leave that for a bit and take a break to cool yourself off? I’m kind of in the mood to relax too. Maybe I can show you how I take the edge off?”

 

Jane turned to look at Zarana’s gaze with her wide azure-blue eyes and her pouty red lips turned up into a smile. “I think I’d like that.”

 

Zarana tightened her grip on Jane’s shoulder and tugged on the young Siegie to get her up onto her feet. Jane was probably only in her early twenties, at least in the looks department, and had a firm body with well-toned curves from working out and surviving the rigors of Crimson Guard indoctrination. Even while wearing a frumpy denim coverall and plain tee-shirt, her breasts were perky with nicely rounded and fleshy nipples.

 

Zarana turned Jane to face her and ran her hands down along the coveralls, smoothing out the loose fabric and tracing the contour of her shapely feminine curves. She then brought her palm up to feel the warmth of Jane’s cheek, using her thumb to brush away the last vestiges of a fallen tear. Zarana’s hand slid smoothly behind the Siegie’s neck and she pulled Jane’s face right up to her own, pressing their lips together in a deep kiss.

 

Jane tried to let out a soft moan as she resisted being taken by surprise with the kiss. But Zarana didn’t loosen her grip. Eventually, Jane softly whimpered, sucked in a breath through her nose and parted her lips to accept Zarana’s passionate kiss. Her own hands drifted to Zarana’s bathrobe, where they undid the knotted fabric belt and then caressed Zarana’s voluptuous curves.

 

Zarana pulled back from her kiss, taking in a deep breath as she watched Jane’s cheeks flush with streaks of red. “Don’t feel embarrassed, Jane. I don’t need to show you anything; you already know how we’re going to relieve our stress. I like that.” She reached for the button-and-loop clasps of Jane’s overalls, snapping one and then the other free. The front bib of the overall dropped to Jane’s waist and her excitement began to show as her nipples firmed up and poked through the skin-hugging t-shirt. It was apparent that Jane had decided to skip wearing her bra for the day, and seeing her breasts perked up made Zarana hotter with excitement.

 

Zarana’s long fingers were tucked into the folds of the overall on either side of Jane’s waist, and soon the denim piece was piled up on the ground. Jane’s tee-shirt fell to the floor next, but Zarana took her time removing it, using her hands to caress up and down Jane’s soft skin. Zarana cupped Jane’s round breasts under the cotton fabric and toyed with her nipples by softly rolling them between her thumbs and forefingers. Jane pinned her eyes shut while savoring Zarana’s warm and sensual touch, throwing her head back to let out a happy moan. She raised her arms high over her head without any prompting to let Zarana slide the cotton garment off her shoulders, and expose her supple flesh for more attention.

 

Dropping her arms around Zarana’s neck, Jane initiated the next kiss, a long and slow lip-spreader with some playful tongue eagerly thrown in. As the women moaned to each other, Jane’s hands found the terrycloth robe and lifted it off Zarana’s shoulders, dropping it smoothly to the floor.

 

Zarana wiggled out from under Jane’s embrace and took one of her hands. She turned to walk into the apartment’s bathroom. “Come with me, gorgeous,” Zarana whispered while she led the young Siegie away. Arriving in the bathroom moments later, Zarana turned on the hot and cold water and started the shower spraying.

 

***

 

Bloodpool polished off his meal and cleaned Zarana’s plate for good measure. Burping with satisfaction, he realized that Zarana and Jane had been secluded in the apartment for quite a while. Upon hearing the sound of water running through the pipes in the wall, he figured the pair might be up to no good. Tiptoeing over to the apartment door, Bloodpool found one of the old keyholes and peered through it to see what was transpiring. He sighed with defeat when he couldn’t see either Zarana or Jane moving about the tiny apartment, and set about patiently watching for something to happen.

 

***

 

Both women stepped into the bathtub at the same time. Zarana, a couple of inches taller than Jane, stood behind, with her arms wrapped around the Siegie as the warm water cascaded over them. For the next few minutes, they took turns soaping each other and caressing each other with warm hands and soft kisses under the flowing water that sprayed over them like a warm summer’s rain.

 

When they were both satisfied with the shower, and more deeply aroused than ever, Jane turned off the shower and the women toweled each other off, giggling when the cotton towels brushed across particularly sensitive parts of their bodies. They left the damp towels behind as they padded softly across the apartment in the nude towards Jane’s bed.

 

***

 

Bloodpool almost banged his head on the heavy brass doorknob when his eye had hit pay dirt. Zarana’s unclothed body was just as he had hoped, with large, firm breasts that made his mouth water, and long shapely legs that met at a muscular but very grope-worthy butt. For having a slightly older, and very battle-hardened physique, Zarana was still able to keep her stature in a tight and sexy womanly form.

 

Jane, the Siegie, was no slouch either. Her younger body was very tight and muscular, like a professional beach volleyball player, and her firm breasts were just right for the proportion of her body. She sported alabaster skin with a slight hint of a tan and didn’t have a freckle or mark on it. Bloodpool could see the sinews and tendons of Jane’s leg muscles flexing and rippling smoothly as she walked and wondered how hot it would be to feel a pair of legs like that wrapped tightly around his waist in bed.

 

***

 

Zarana studied Jane’s smooth back muscles and the outline of her rib cage, drawing her gaze down to her supple buttocks. As they walked out of the bathroom, Jane asked with a giggle, “So, what do you have in mind next?”

 

Jane stopped and turned to face Zarana once they reached the bed, and she rose on her tiptoes to share another warm kiss. As their lips met and their tongues pressed together, Zarana grabbed Jane by her forearms and giggled playfully, then tossed the younger woman onto the soft bed.

 

Zarana slinked onto the bed next to Jane, teasing her erect nipples with her fingers. She then wrapped herself around the Siegie again, kissing her deeply. Jane closed her eyes and felt swept up in the sensations that coursed through her body for the very first time. Zarana moved from Jane’s pouty lips to her lightly perfumed neck and then down her heaving chest. She spent a lot of time flicking at Jane’s nipples with her tongue, and occasionally biting down to get a yelp out of the younger woman.

 

Zarana could feel Jane’s entire body shudder with anticipation right through to her quivering belly muscles as she kissed lower and lower past the navel. Upon reaching Jane’s thighs, Zarana spread them gently and teased around her erogenous areas with gentle flicks of the tongue and playful kisses. Jane began to let out moans of extreme arousal and said in a deep and sultry voice, “I want to taste you too, Zarana...”

 

“I thought you’d never ask,” Zarana replied, turning her body first to an angle where Jane could only reach out and touch. The young Siegie didn’t disappoint as her slender fingers stroked Zarana’s warm lips and rubbed against her clit enough to get her moist and wanting more.

 

While the electric sensations of Jane’s touch rippled through Zarana’s body, she responded in kind, using her fingers to spread Jane’s lips wide and stroking her to the point where her legs vibrated with deep feelings of pleasure.

 

Zarana turned her head back to look at Jane’s face, scrunched in an expression of raw animal passion. “Do you want to get on top of me, Jane?”

 

Jane moaned as Zarana’s fingers found a sweet spot that sent powerful tingles up her spine. “Climb on top of me, Zarana, please...”

 

Zarana stroked the insides of Jane’s thighs as she raised her leg and straddled the Siegie’s body. Jane wasted no time in expressing her desire. She leaned forward eagerly and used a combination of tongue and finger strokes to give Zarana’s vagina the full treatment.

 

Zarana felt herself get aroused almost instantly and she broke a sweat as her crotch became moist and her lips and muscles ached for Jane’s touch. She spread Jane open to rub her clitoris hard and at times bit into her fleshy and firm thighs as Jane hit a sweet spot in her attentions.

 

***

 

Zarana and Jane’s moaning sounded almost like a dull roar just outside the apartment door, as Bloodpool strained to watch what he could of the action. He couldn’t believe his eyes when he watched the two women entwined together. Whether he got caught at it or not, Bloodpool decided to stay through the whole show and enjoy himself.

 

***

 

Zarana and Jane were both so deeply involved in giving the other oral pleasure that their moans were muffled by soft flesh and muscle. Jane surprised Zarana by pulling a small metallic vibrator from under her pillow and touched the cool surface to her clitoris. Zarana screamed with pleasure when the Siegie turned it on and thrust it inside her. “Oh, yes, Jane, yes! Make me cum!”

 

Zarana rocked her hips and pressed her pelvis back to accept the full length of the vibrator. In return, she inserted her three longest fingers into Jane and began to thrust deeply inside of her, eliciting a yelp and then screams of pleasure.

 

The two women worked at each other for a good fifteen more minutes until they both screamed out with shouts of pleasure and release. Zarana climbed off Jane’s quivering body and gave her a kiss before retrieving her bathrobe. “Now, that is what I call stress relief.”

 

Jane was so spent and flooded with feelings of pleasure that she could only nod and smile. She rested in the bed for a long time and then drifted off to sleep.

 

Zarana left the apartment quietly, hearing the door to the room she shared with Bloodpool slam an instant before she reached the hallway. She had already gotten into the room as well when Fred finally returned with the pizzas and looked around the deserted lobby with a bewildered expression. He shrugged and sat down to enjoy a few slices of pepperoni pizza before he decided it was high time to go back into the apartment to apologize to Jane and kiss her good night.


	8. Road Trip

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Five

Road Trip

 

Tuesday, 16 July, 2002, 1000 hours, Eastern Standard Time

Rhinebeck, New York

Rhine Cliff Bridge Motor Inn

 

Bloodpool toweled off some dripping water as he stepped out of the small shower he shared with Zarana in their tiny motel room. He yelled out to where Zarana was changing into some civilian clothes of her own in the main room. “Come on, Zarana! Haven’t we been laying low long enough? We’ve been here almost a week and I can’t stand it cooped up in this place anymore!”

 

“Will you shut the fuck up already, and quit your bitching?” Zarana said with a hint of cabin fever in her own voice. “This fucking safe house is the only spot in this part of New York that we can hide from the State Police roadblocks right now. Just kick back, watch the telly and try to make the best of it until the Siegie, Fred 308, comes around to smuggle us back to Springfield.” Zarana turned angrily towards the motel room door as she straightened her brassiere and threw on her favorite torn pink cotton top and pink leather jacket. “Where the fuck is that Siegie ‘desk clerk’ with the fucking breakfast from the diner, anyway?!?”

 

After dressing into a comfortable ensemble of utility fatigues, Bloodpool decided to remove his cal-50 AMR from its case and clean the barrel, for the umpteenth time. He pulled out the hard wire brushes belonging to his cleaning kit and began to scrub the weapon with a metallic grinding sound.

 

Zarana clenched her hands over her ears and bent over Bloodpool’s bed to stare him angrily in the face. She showed him a generous view of her cleavage, which gave the sniper pause; although he had seen lots more while peeking under the crack in the bathroom door every night. “Must you scrape and grind at that damn thing every time you get bored? You haven’t fired the fucking thing in what... four... five days? You’re only supposed to clean the son of a bitch after you pump rounds through it!”

 

Bloodpool slammed his rifle parts down onto the bed and strained to keep from reaching out and throttling Zarana. “I was trying to do what you said, okay? I’m cooling my fucking heels, okay? If you want me to calm down, take off for a few hours and let me bring a hooker in here. Then I’ll be good for another week at least!”

 

Zarana backhanded Bloodpool angrily, slamming the back of his head against the thinly-padded headboard of his bed. Bloodpool reacted by shaking his head confoundedly and unsuccessfully groping for a spot on Zarana he could take hold of. “You’re a fucking pervert, Bloodpool. And don’t think you’re getting any more peep shows while I’m in the shower, you bloody cheeky bastard!”

 

Bloodpool dazedly shook off Zarana’s sock in the head and reached out for Zarana’s wrist as she turned away. He slipped a throwing dagger out of a thigh sheath and held it at the ready. “Don’t... don’t you fucking hit me like that again or...”

 

Zarana yanked her wrist free and reached for her pistol holster, which was hanging from her bedpost. Drawing the sidearm in one fluid motion, Zarana had it in both hands and aimed at Bloodpool’s crotch when he brandished the knife. “What’ll you do, huh? Cut me? You just try it, you dirty wanker, and I’ll make you sing Soprano! Cobra Commander pays you for what you can do with a rifle, not for what you can do with that gun!”

 

Bloodpool snapped back into reality first, quickly letting the knife loose from his fingers and keeping his hands empty and visible. “Whoa, there, Zarana, that’s not necessary. I think we should just chalk this up to cabin fever and keep the peace a little bit longer, okay? I’m sorry I pulled the knife on you.”

 

Zarana reluctantly re-holstered the pistol, but not without firing a round into Bloodpool’s bed that had barely cleared his crotch by less than an inch in any direction. “Don’t push me, boyo. Just you don’t fucking push me. Watch the damn infomercials on the telly while I go find the desk clerk. And keep the bloody guns out of sight, will you?” Zarana slipped the shoulder holster rig over her back and left the bedroom with a hollow slam of the front door.

 

***

 

1600 hours, at the ‘Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome’:

 

Weeds and grasses completely covered the buildings and hangars of the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, which was nothing more now than open fields and one barely serviceable paved runway. Because of its dilapidated condition, the US Federal Aviation Administration didn’t even register the field on its current list of locations capable of handling aircraft. Despite the high level of disrepair, the old US Army Air Corps reserve field was perfect for Cobra.

 

As the sun began to dip below the horizon towards the Hudson River in the west, a small, twin-engine turboprop lit up its landing lights and lined up for approach. From the old tower, a Cobra Crimson Guard trooper illuminated the end of the runway with an old spotlight and gasoline generator, and powered up a short-range radio to talk to the plane.

 

The incoming aircraft was an Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirante, a Brazilian-built short-range corporate aircraft with comfortable room for about eight to ten, including the flight crew. It was painted all white, with a thin cheat line in blue and a very tiny Cobra emblem hidden on the nose wheel door. A legend on either side of the fuselage read “ARBCO Holdings, Inc.”

 

“Rhinebeck, this is Firefly. We’re lined up on the paved runway. How do we look from the ground?”

 

The CG on the ground keyed his short-range radio and replied, “This is Fred 308, you’re good here, Firefly. Bring it on down. Zarana and Bloodpool will be pleased as peaches to know you’re here.”

 

“Roger that, Fred 308, see you on the ground.” With Firefly at the controls, the ARBCO Bandeirante smoothly swept down to the runway and landed on the overgrown strip without incident. Firefly parked the small plane in the only hangar that looked like it was still useful, and then he and Scrap-Iron followed Fred 308 to his Ford Escort station wagon.

 

***

 

1630 hours, Rhine Cliff Bridge Motor Inn:

 

Bloodpool had fallen asleep on his twin bed and Zarana was lazily working at her fingernails and watching MTV on the room’s TV set when a knock sounded at the door. Bloodpool stirred awake quickly, and had reached for his automatic when Zarana drew hers and went to answer the door. She looked out through the peephole and relaxed.

 

“It’s about bloody time you blokes got here!” Zarana exclaimed at Firefly and Scrap-Iron when they entered the room, with Fred 308 in tow. “We’ve gone fucking stir crazy! Bloodpool was even beginning to look attractive! I want to get back to Springfield pronto!”

 

“We’re not going to Springfield for R&R, Zarana,” Firefly said quietly. “Cobra Commander has sent us new orders. We’re meeting your brothers and the Drednoks in San Francisco.”

 

As the Cobra agents began to pack their belongings for loading into Fred 308’s station wagon, wailing sirens echoed down the normally quiet Rhinebeck roads. A dozen New York State Police cruisers and a handful of local and county sheriff units had begun to converge on the small hotel.

 

Jane 277, the “desk clerk”, ran over to the hotel room with her AR-18 loaded and ready. She brought along a small arsenal of sub-machineguns and assault rifles for the group. “Fred, it’s the cops. Someone at the diner must have gotten suspicious about the meals we were bringing over here all the time.”

 

“Shit,” Bloodpool cursed, unpacking his AMR. “Now we need to fight our way to the airfield.”

 

Zarana handed around the collection of weapons that Jane 277 brought in, choosing a pair of Uzi’s for herself. “I’m so fucking tired of this right now I’ll fight my way out of a paper bag. Let’s kill those bleeders and get the fuck out of this one stop-light town!”

 

The New York units had come in on an anonymous tip from an off-duty sheriff’s deputy that frequented the local diner. It was awfully suspicious to him that guests to their sleepy town’s motel couldn’t come out of their room to eat unless they had something to hide.

 

Forming a perimeter and blocking off the main state highway in each direction, the cops clustered near the hotel parking lot, as a pair of officers in Kevlar vests approached the hotel office, armed with shotguns.

 

Jane 277 cocked her head as she heard the front door buzzer. “Come on, we’ll fight our way out from the emergency exit. Is the wagon parked there?” Fred 308 nodded, as he locked and loaded his own AR-18 and covered his head with his CG helmet.

 

***

 

The two veteran NY state troopers waited patiently at the front desk for the clerk, ringing the call bell to get her attention. “Hey, Joe, does this seem odd to you? Where’s the damn desk clerk?” Both of the men turned the volume of their walkie-talkies down so the conversations of the cops outside wouldn’t tip anyone off inside.

 

“Mike, if she’s not here, I’m willing to guess those suspicious people have her hostage. Let’s take a stroll down the hall and have a look at the guest rooms.” Mike nodded and cocked his shotgun, as he walked down the corridor with Joe right behind.

 

Jane 277 peeked out through a crack in the doorway and shook her head. “Shit, the cops are coming down the hall.”

 

“Let’s take ‘em,” Bloodpool said. “I’ll cover you with the AMR. All of you make for the car and cover me when I come out.” The other Cobras nodded in agreement.

 

Joe turned to Mike and whispered, “Which one do you think they’re holed up in?”

 

Mike stopped and put a finger to his lips. He pointed to his eyes and then to the last door before the fire exit at the end of the corridor. Joe nodded his understanding.

 

Jane 277 had her hand on the doorknob, and had also put on her CG helmet and body armor, when Bloodpool released the safety on his AMR and nodded. Jane flung the door open, and in one fluid motion, Bloodpool rolled out into the hallway, taking cover in the opposite doorway across the hall.

 

Mike raised his shotgun instinctively and yelled “Freeze! New York State Troopers!” Joe also leveled his shotgun and backed into a doorway for some protection.

 

Bloodpool didn’t even use the sights to aim. He simply brought the large rifle up to his shoulder and fired two silenced shots. The cal-50 rounds struck the state troopers each in the head, where they had no Kevlar protection. In the fraction of a second it took to aim and fire, the troopers’ heads became distorted masses of blood and gore.

 

As the troopers’ maimed bodies fell slack to the ground, twitching with their last impulses of life, the Cobras ran past Bloodpool for the emergency exit. Fred 308 got behind the wheel, with Jane 277 riding shotgun. Firefly and Zarana leaned out of the passenger windows with guns at the ready, while Scrap-Iron lifted up the rear door and waited to haul Bloodpool inside.

 

As soon as officers manning the police perimeter saw the activity at the side exit, they knew there was a problem. They crouched behind their lines of cruisers with pistols and shotguns drawn, while a state police Lieutenant with a bullhorn yelled at the group to stop and surrender.

 

The station wagon, still with its lift gate raised, backed out into the parking lot, and Fred 308 aimed the rear in the direction of the side street that led to the old aerodrome. The Cobras fired out the car windows in all directions, keeping the cops’ heads down with heavy automatic fire. Most of the cops were too scared to fire back.

 

As bristling with weapons as the Escort wagon was, their escape route was blocked by a dark blue state police cruiser and its pair of armed troopers. Scrap-Iron decided that an escalation in firepower was in order when he raised a LAW rocket and unceremoniously blasted the patrol car right off the small side road.

 

“The coast is clear, Fred! Get us the fuck out of here!” Scrap-Iron yelled, as Bloodpool picked off one of the state troopers who had ducked into a drainage ditch when the cruiser exploded.

 

It took several critical moments for the cops to react to the lightning speed at which the Cobras made their getaway, but as they started firing at the station wagon, it was well on its way.

 

In order to keep the cops off their backs while they returned to the aerodrome, Firefly left behind a brace of ‘pocket mines’; they were essentially the contents of a FASCAM cluster munition, without the large canister used to deploy them.

 

The pocket mines were hardly expected on the road, so as the police cars took off in pursuit of the Cobras, a string of satisfying explosions marked the end of the would-be pursuers.

 

***

 

Fifteen minutes later:

 

Firefly pushed the throttles to the stops as he goosed the turboprop engines of the ARBCO Bandeirante to full power. Letting off the brakes, the aircraft rolled and bounced down the overgrown runway as it gained speed. At about eighty knots, Firefly rotated the aircraft, yanking back hard on the control yoke, and the plane’s wings began to lift it into the sky. Once off the ground, he turned the plane onto a southerly course.

 

Zarana ran a hand through her hair as she sat in the copilot’s seat of the Bandeirante and regarded Firefly while he set the automatic pilot and navigation computer. She handed him a cold can of grape soda from the plane’s galley, to drink after he relaxed and let the aircraft take over the flying.

 

“So where are we going, Firefly?” Zarana asked, looking at the compass and TACAN navigation unit. “This is not a course which would take us from Rhinebeck to Springfield.”

 

“We’re heading for Tampa, Florida, Zarana,” Firefly said coolly. “There were new orders from the Commander. We’re going on the offensive and our next target is General Franks, the head of US Central Command. He and a number of key staff will be at the domestic headquarters of that Army command for two weeks to brief the President while the military buildup is occurring in Iraq. Stupid fucking CNN reported it during a press conference in Bahrain, and we’ve been tasked to lead a section of Crimson Guards and take the core people out!” Zarana and Firefly shared an evil laugh as the Bandeirante banked smoothly through the mid-afternoon sky.

 

***

 

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base:

 

“You didn’t even ask if we wanted to volunteer for the advance team, General! We want our fair share of this op, too!” Flint was raising his voice over the video link with Washington as Lady Jaye and Beach Head looked on.

 

Tomahawk kept a straight face through the tirade. “Flint, I didn’t ask you to go ahead to KKMC because I need you to select a team for a quick job here. All of the Joes who volunteered to leave for Dhahran have their travel orders cut and everything is in order. But I need you, Beach Head and Lady Jaye to pick a select team to take to Tampa.”

 

“Tampa... in Florida?” Flint asked. “Why are we being left behind?”

 

“You’re not being left behind, Flint,” Tomahawk replied, punching up a picture of the CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa. “You are going down to provide extra protection for General Franks and the President while they are having their strategic briefing at CENTCOM. They’ll be in Tampa for a couple weeks, and then you will be able to hitch a ride back with the General to Bahrain and get shipped up to me at KKMC. I suspect that Cobra’s campaign to destabilize our ability to react to the tensions in Iraq would make the meeting between the General and the President a tasty target. If you can catch the Cobras in the act, maybe we can trip up their plans here in the U.S.”

 

“And you want us to leave Cobra with a bad taste in their mouths, right, General?” Lady Jaye asked, cocking her head in thought.

 

“Exactly, Lady Jaye,” Tomahawk replied. “Take a half dozen Joes or so, and you can have a squad or two of Green Shirts. Keep it light as far as equipment, and bring what you’ll need for the mid-east. General Franks knows you’re flying back with his staff.”

 

“You got it, General,” Flint replied. “I’ve got a buddy with the Ohio Air National Guard who flies the C-20A Gulfstream. He’ll get us to Tampa lickety-split.”

 

“Very well. Good luck to your team, Flint. I’ll see you in King Khalid in a couple weeks. Tomahawk out.”

 

***

 

High over Hafr-al-Batin Air Base, Saudi Arabia:

 

The Cobra Night Raven S3P reconnaissance plane flew at over thirty thousand feet in its mission profile to provide Baghdad with high-resolution shots of the Saudi border defenses and major bases. The secondary mission for the high-speed recon plane was to locate places where American and NATO forces were taking up position alongside the indigenous units to hold the Iraqi frontier.

 

“Altitude steady at Angels Thirty. The new vector is two-seven-five. Hafr-al-Batin is twenty miles off our nose. Maintain this course and speed while I cue up the digital imager,” the Strato-Viper in the Systems Operator position was all business as he gave the pilot the instructions he needed to line up for the photo pass.

 

While the Cobra Night Raven was semi-stealthy, using altitude and speed to avoid detection, the high-powered three dimensional radar systems on board a USAF E-3 Sentry still distinguished the black aircraft as a bogey.

 

A young Air Force combat controller, one of the veteran Sentry crew’s best, studied his radar scope carefully and then called his crew commander, a Major who could personally take charge of a sector air defense right from the Sentry. “Major, I have an inbound bogey coming west from the vicinity of Iraq. It’s on a direct heading over Hafr-al-Batin at Angels Thirty, doing about Mach one point five.”

 

“Who do we have in the air?” the Major asked, keying his intercom to the Sentry’s radio room to have them alert Hafr-al-Batin and scramble their air defense interceptors.

 

“We have Scimitar Five-one and Five-two, a two-ship Saudi F-15S patrol in the Hafr-al-Batin ADIZ sector, and a Navy combat air patrol of four F/A-18C’s from VFA-41 over Kuwait which can be vectored in.”

 

The Major studied the icons of the bogey and the closest available fighters. “Alert Scimitar Flight and make them the primary intercept team. Keep the Black Aces in their orbit for now.”

 

“Right, sir,” the controller replied, changing the frequency on his air-to-air transponder to the Saudi Royal Air Force patrol channel. “Scimitar flight on patrol in sector five, this is US Air Force Whiskey One-One Combat Controller. We have a bogey for you at Angels Thirty. Request you vector to Hafr-al-Batin and intercept bogey expeditiously.”

 

***

 

Aboard Scimitar Flight:

 

The blue skies over Saudi Arabia were clear and cloud-free as the two Saudi pilots of Scimitar Flight conducted their standing alert air patrol over the Iraqi frontier. Their brand-new American-built F-15S Eagles vibrated under their seats as the engines rocketed them through the sky at full military power.

 

Major Adi al-Watin led the flight in Scimitar Five-One and was a veteran Gulf War Tornado pilot with four-thousand-plus flight hours, who had scored two aerial victories against an Iraqi MiG-29 and Mirage IV jet during the long air campaign. His wingman in Scimitar Five-Two was Captain Tariq Faisal, a recent graduate of the joint USAF and Saudi Air Force ‘Eagle Driver’ training program. Faisal had voluntarily transferred from one of the Jaguar ground attack squadrons as a mud-mover with several hundred operational flying hours under his belt, and his training in low-altitude flying made him one of the grittiest students at Eagle Driver. He had only been on patrol with the F-15S squadron for forty-five days.

 

Both pilots received the intercept order from Whiskey One-One at the same time, and Major al-Watin responded as the flight leader. “Scimitar Five-One to Whiskey One-One, we acknowledge your contact with bogey over Hafr-al-Batin. We are turning to intercept. Climbing to Angels Thirty and assuming intercept vector zero-four-five.” The pair of Eagle fighters banked hard onto their new course and set their powerful track-while-scan radars to hunt for the bogey.

 

***

 

“Pilot from Systems, come right to new heading two-nine-five for our next photo pass over King Khalid Military City,” the Night Raven Systems Operator instructed his pilot over the intercom.

 

The Strato-Viper piloting the Night Raven checked his threat display and noticed red lights popping up on his radar warning receiver panel. “Systems, hold on one. I have two tactical-band hits and one broadband hit on the RWR. It looks like Saudi air defenses are giving us an unfriendly wave.”

 

“Follow the flight profile, Pilot. We don’t have time to play distraction games for the combat air patrols.” The corps of Cobra Strato-Vipers was well renowned for being ballsy flyers to the point of picking air to air battles just to show off their flying prowess. Regardless of the platform or mission, the Cobra pilots tried everything to get into a “furball” or aerial dogfight.

 

“Yeah, yeah, Systems,” the pilot replied with a dissatisfied groan. “Hang onto your ass, course change coming up.” On purpose, the Night Raven pilot pulled into a high-g hard bank to shake up his Systems Operator in the back seat.

 

***

 

“Whiskey One-One to Scimitar Flight, bogey has now changed course for the KKMC ADIZ. Punch up the speed, gentlemen, before this guy penetrates any more of your airspace!” The controller watched as the blips on his radar scope closed with each other, but the bogey seemed to have a potential speed advantage over the F-15’s.

 

“Scimitar Five-One, we’re punching up the burners. We’ll have an intercept in three minutes.” The tail fire of the F-15’s went from an orange-red to a bright orange as the pilots selected Zone Five on their afterburners and the planes accelerated to supersonic speed.

 

***

 

“Systems to Pilot, we have two AWG-9 radars sniffing us. Their IFF signature matches the profile of Saudi F-15 interceptors. Let’s make this photo pass fast and make a bee line for Saddam International.”

 

“No way, Systems, those are fighters. I’ll run the film strip, but we can’t afford to be identified. Remember Cobra Commander’s orders. We’re not supposed to look like we’re heavily involved here. If they can lay a hairy eyeball on us, Cobra Commander will ventilate us for breaking orders back at base. I’m going to engage them and clear this section of sky.”

 

The Strato-Viper at Systems nodded and powered up the Night Raven’s unmanned battle drone, which was controlled by the Systems Operator during combat. “Millie’s powering up. We’ll need five minutes before I can launch her.” The veteran Night Raven crew jokingly called their drones “Millie”; most likely a sick inside joke only they knew about.

 

Systems finished the pre-flight procedure for “Millie” and returned to his navigation screen. “Pilot, you’re right on vector. Ten miles to KKMC and second photo pass. We’ll be in visual range of the F-15’s any minute now.”

 

***

 

“Scimitar Five-One to Whiskey One-One, we’re about ten miles from the bogey and have a solid radar lock on him. Flight profile suggests a reconnaissance bird. We request further instructions.”

 

“Whiskey One-One to Scimitar Flight, as per your government’s instructions you are to identify the intruder aircraft and eliminate same if hostile. Do not allow it to return to its home airspace with data on the military bases.”

 

“Scimitar Five-One, roger that. Intercept will take place in five minutes at present speed.”

 

The F-15S fighters climbed to an altitude of thirty one thousand feet as they closed the ten-mile gap that remained between them and the Night Raven. It was a standard procedure to try and engage a bogey from a higher flight level, so that the attacking fighter can trade that altitude for speed when it needed to get in close and dogfight. Because open hostilities were still not declared, the rules of engagement dictated that the Eagle drivers get a solid identity of an intruder before being allowed to shoot it down.

 

Considering the Night Raven had over-flown two major Saudi bases, the recon plane had the advantage of altitude. The Saudi defensive belt of M-167 Vulcan, I-HAWK and Chaparral systems couldn’t touch the high-level recon flight. Saudi Arabia depended solely on jet fighters and their young pilots to reach the most dangerous intruders.

 

“Pilot from Systems, I have the bandits high and behind us. They’re in a good position to engage; two Saudi F-15 fighters at Angels Thirty and one mile in trail, loose-deuce formation. I’ve got them in sight.”

 

“Okay, Systems, the photo pass is done and the imagery databank is full. I’m turning to engage the fighters. How’s Millie?”

 

“Millie’s ready,” the Systems Operator reported, laying one hand on the drone release handle and the other on his pilot’s controls. He had already switched all of the navigation and fuel/weapons management to the pilot’s control so that he could focus on flying Millie.

 

“Don’t launch until we’re close to a neutral pass,” the pilot insisted as he began a long banking turn into the fighters’ path. “Then we can split them up and kick their asses.”

 

***

 

Captain Faisal spotted the Night Raven making its turn into the attack through a large cloud as he was scanning the skies from his huge bubble cockpit canopy. “Five-Two to Five-One, the bandit is turning toward us! He looks like he’s itching to start a furball with us!”

 

Major al-Watin was straining from his angle to look ahead and unsuccessfully located the Cobra jet. “I’m having trouble making him out, Captain Faisal. Can you identify the bandit?”

 

Faisal had his eyes locked onto the Cobra as the black plane stood out on the white background of the thick cloud. “Affirm. Large black twin-jet aircraft; looks a lot like an American SR-71 reconnaissance plane. I also spotted what could be shadows or a small parasite aircraft between its tails. There is some sort of marking in red on the wing surfaces, but he’s assuredly not an American SR-71 bird.”

 

Major al-Watin smiled under his oxygen mask as he lined up with his wingman and spotted the Night Raven as well. “Good eyes, Captain. If he comes at us for a neutral pass, let him come between us and we’ll both break left to go after him in a loose-deuce formation. You take the first shot at him.”

 

Captain Faisal manipulated one of the switches on his HOTAS (Hands on Throttle and Stick) system and kicked his rudder pedals slightly to put a little lateral distance between him and Major al-Watin. “Roger that, Five-One; the Master Arm switch is on, and all weapons are hot and available.”

 

The Royal Saudi F-15’s carried a standard air defense/interceptor weapons load. Each plane in Scimitar Flight had four AIM-9X “Advanced Sparrow” medium-to-long-range, radar-directed missiles, four AIM-120C AMRAAM all-aspect, radar/thermal-guided “smart” missiles, and four AIM-7P Sidewinder short-range, heat-seeking missiles. The missile load was in addition to the agile fighter’s M-61A1 30mm Gatling cannon; all in all a deadly combination when matched with an aggressive air defense pilot.

 

The Night Raven completed its turn and fired off its afterburners, catapulting it to a higher velocity. Its nose was pointed right at the pair of Saudi interceptors as the range closed from miles to less than four thousand feet.

 

“He’s coming right for us, Major!” Captain Faisal called out frantically on the inter-plane channel. “Widen our spread so he doesn’t ram us both!”

 

“Calm down, Faisal,” Major al-Watin assured the junior aviator. “Don’t flinch unless you’re absolutely sure. Remember, we have to have balls of steel up high in the wild blue. Have your guns ready in case you can do a glancing shot.”

 

Captain Faisal, on his senior’s suggestion, flipped the weapons selection switch on his HOTAS to ‘Gun’ and rested his left index finger on the trigger, which was on the directional joystick. Major al-Watin followed the same procedure as he armed up for battle.

 

***

 

“We’re less than three thousand feet from them and the TCS shows them in a tight formation! Watch your ass!” The Systems Operator had the view from Millie’s nose-mounted TCS, or television camera set, slaved to one of his view screens and made out the gray shapes of the Saudi F-15’s in their intercept formation. “Master Arm switch is enabled on Millie and on us. You are red and free to shoot with all onboard weapon systems.”

 

As the gray fighter shapes closed faster and faster, filling the windscreen of the Night Raven, the pilot called out over the intercom, “Systems, get ready to yank ‘em and bank ‘em!”

 

“Launch Millie,” the pilot ordered, pushing the throttle to its stops so that he had maximum velocity for an inside turn once he broke up the Eagles’ formation.

 

The Systems Operator reacted instinctively on the pilot’s order, yanking down the drone launch handle, which triggered a high-compression chemical starter on Millie’s single jet engine, igniting it instantly. The launch handle also detonated a series of explosive bolts that held the drone onto its launch rail. After a split-second systems check from Millie’s onboard computer, the drone responded to Systems’ throttle and stick movements and lifted away from the Night Raven.

 

“Millie’s flying free,” the Systems Operator reported.

 

***

 

Captain Faisal spotted the separation of the Night Raven and Millie at about a thousand feet distance from their formation. “Allah, help us! The bandit is splitting into two!” He quickly kicked his rudder pedals to the right to yaw out of the way and noticed Major al-Watin’s knee-jerk reaction of putting his Eagle into a left-hand roll.

 

Both Cobra aircraft lanced between the pair of Eagles at a combined speed of over one thousand five hundred miles an hour. They passed without striking each other, but all four airframes vibrated dangerously from the violently disturbed air turbulence.

 

“Break left, Faisal! Break left now!” Major al-Watin rolled left and yanked back on his joystick to try and turn inside the Night Raven’s banking radius. Captain Faisal’s nose was out of position, but he yanked hard to catch up to his flight leader in mid-turn.

 

“The Eagles turned to our three o’clock, Pilot,” Systems reported, banking Millie to the right in a twelve-g turn that would black out even the best pilots. The pilot banked the Night Raven in the maximum turn he could manage, which topped out at just over nine and a half g’s.

 

The Systems Operator smiled under his oxygen mask as the remote drone rolled well inside the turning radius of the Eagles, using all three dimensions to make a tight angular loop. Soon, the top profile of one of the Scimitar fighters filled the drone pilot’s TCS monitor. Visible indicators on the screen informed the Systems Operator that Millie’s ranging radar showed the Eagle well within gun range. “I have a top-aspect gun shot for Millie! I’m taking the shot!”

 

Millie was outfitted with short-range missiles, but they were inefficient for dog-fighting against agile piloted fighters because the drone’s own targeting sensors were limited. The missile load was meant only to supplement the parent Night Raven’s own armament. Thus, Millie’s most potent weapon was her twin 30mm cannon and the onboard load of five thousand rounds.

 

Twin orange streams of fire and puffs of black smoke came out from under the drone’s nose as Millie spat out long bursts of 30mm API-T armor-piercing, incendiary tracer ammo. The bursts blasted through the air and nearly stitched through the thin aluminum skin of the targeted F-15. Fortunately, only a handful peppered the large elevators and tail-planes of the fighter.

 

“Captain Faisal, I’ve been hit, no apparent damage,” Major al-Watin calmly reported, as he scanned his control panel for warning lights and didn’t feel any sluggishness in his controls. “Keep turning and shoot!”

 

Captain Faisal steadily rolled in a left-hand flat loop, and the Night Raven filled his heads-up display as the firing cue traced behind the plane’s center of mass. “I’m going for close-range lock,” Faisal reported, as the warble of the AIM-120C AMRAAM tracker sounded in his ears, and the visual targeting circle vectored closer to the black shape in front of him. In about a second, the warble became a steady tone as the aircraft radar matched the missile seeker. “I have a solid radar lock, taking a shot! Fox Four!”

 

“Systems to Pilot, we have a missile lock warning! Get ready to jink!” The Strato-Viper only could keep his eye on the warning panels and report to the pilot, since he was turning Millie to try and roll it behind the Eagles for another gun shot from her twin cannons.

 

“Jinking left, reversing turn!” the Pilot warned, as the Night Raven rolled into the direction of flight opposite its previous path. Just as it began to roll, Faisal’s AIM-120C AMRAAM leapt off its launch rail on blue-white tail fire as the chemical igniter primed the missile’s quick-burning propellant.

 

“Missile is inbound!” Systems yelled, as he scanned the drone sensors to see which aircraft the AMRAAM had locked onto. “It’s not homing on Millie!” Systems had another possible shot from the drone and triggered the twin cannons while the pilot tried to evade the radar-guided missile shot.

 

***

 

Major al-Watin felt his Eagle shudder as Millie fired again, this time scoring a hit with a few rounds of cannon ammo. “I’m hit in my port tail plane! I have a red light on hydraulics and controls have become a little sluggish. I may have a hydraulic leak and control system failure may be imminent!”

 

Captain Faisal had held onto his tight turn even after the missile launched and the Night Raven reverse-rolled to try and get away. The shape of the larger recon plane filled the target reticle, or ‘pipper’, of his HUD gun sight, and the captain instinctively let off a salvo of 30mm rounds into where he thought the plane’s center of mass was. “Major, stay steady! I may have the bandit!”

 

Faisal’s AMRAAM lost its track when the Night Raven executed its rapid course reversal. It was a well-known trick that pilots used to deceive the signal returns used to make modern Pulse-Doppler air combat radars work.

 

The captain’s gun burst had much better results, tracing straight through one of the Night Raven’s twin afterburning engines, and causing significant shrapnel damage. Soon after taking the hits, the Night Raven’s engine caught fire.

 

***

 

“We have a fire in Number Two Engine! We took a bad hit back there!” Systems exclaimed as red warning lights flashed all over the analog flight systems boards and the audible alarms for engine problems and a fire both rang in the cockpit.

 

The pilot acted quickly, setting off a Halon fire suppression system and cutting off the fuel feed from the onboard tanks to the damaged engine. He leveled off and played gently with the plane’s throttles and stick. “Fire contained and engine two shut down. We can make it back on just Number One! Get Millie’s head out of her ass and shoot these fuckers down! Hang on, banking left!” The pilot regained control with the remaining engine and banked hard left to re-engage.

 

***

 

“I got him! Wahoo!” Faisal exclaimed with jubilance as he saw his tracers lance through the Night Raven’s right engine and the telltale plumes of smoke and flame came out of the engine casing and fuselage. “The Big Mother-ship is hit!”

 

Major al-Watin was turning beneath Faisal when he saw the drone swoop in for another top-aspect shot. “Faisal! Look out!”

 

The Night Raven was in another banking turn and was going to cross paths with Scimitar flight from left to right. But Millie was above and in a dive, definitely in an optimal shoot-down position in relation to the Eagles. Captain Faisal was slightly higher than Major al-Watin, and to his left.

 

Captain Faisal rolled hard to the right and kept the Night Raven in his gun sight pipper when Major al-Watin yelled out his warning. The roll and turn put Faisal out of Millie’s line of fire, but al-Watin’s hydraulic problems didn’t allow him to react as quickly to the gun attack. The drone opened fire and raked Scimitar Five-One from nose to tail with deadly 30mm bullets.

 

Al-Watin screamed out over the tactical channel, “No! Aaargh! I’ve been hit again! Massive electrical system damage and the main drop tank has been holed! I’m losing fuel and the controls are sticking!” Major al-Watin didn’t even notice until it was too late that two 30mm rounds had punctured the aircraft skin and ricocheted into the cockpit, one smashing through his left leg and the other tearing into his lower back and severing his spine. He only felt a sharp pain and then numbness as his limbs stopped responding to his intended movements. “I’m hit! I’m hit! I can’t move! I’m going down! Allah-u akbar, guide me to eternal life!”

 

Major al-Watin’s F-15S, smoking in several places where the cannon rounds hit major systems, began to dive in a lazy spiral and then accelerated to extremely high speed before smashing into the desert floor thirty thousand feet below and becoming atomized in a massive internal explosion of fuel and ordnance.

 

***

 

“Splash one Eagle!” the Systems Operator called out joyfully, as he banked the drone to the right and searched for Scimitar Five-Two.

 

“Hang onto your ass again, Systems,” the pilot yelled. “He just shot a missile at our eyeballs!” The pilot worked feverishly at his controls to turn the sluggish Night Raven in order to avoid the second AMRAAM missile shot.

 

After an angled roll and the launch of two canisters of rapid-blooming chaff, the pilot sighed with relief as the AMRAAM followed the decoys and exploded a safe distance away.

 

The Systems Operator studied the gauges on Millie’s status board and frowned. “Millie’s running low on fuel, Pilot. Do you think we can retrieve her and knock the other Eagle out ourselves?”

 

“No time, Systems. Plus with our engine damage we can’t outrun the Eagle. We’re going to have to sacrifice Millie.” The pilot rolled into a new turn to try and lure Scimitar Five-Two into a position where Millie could finish him off.

 

“Right, Pilot; I’m setting the drone to ‘auto-pursuit’ once we have a lock on the second Eagle.”

 

***

 

Captain Faisal was shaken at the realization that his mentor and section leader had gone down with his fighter, and then he was filled with thoughts of revenge. Throwing all caution to the wind, Faisal yanked and banked his fighter into a steep bank, subjecting his body to all the gees that he could handle in order to line up to kill the Night Raven.

 

“I’m going to kill you, Iraqi dogs, for murdering Major al-Watin!” Faisal shouted into the radio mike, as he laid the nose of the Eagle back onto the Night Raven and fired his cannon continually.

 

***

 

“We’re hit again, port side sensor antennas! I have a drop-off on our satellite communications and one of the TACAN transceivers is dead!” Systems rattled off the electronics and avionics damage the plane sustained from Faisal’s last gun pass, as Millie registered a radar lock-on and accepted the programming for “terminal guidance”, which essentially turned Millie into a suicide plane. “Millie’s on auto-pursuit, Pilot. Get us out of here!”

 

“Right, we’re returning to base now,” the pilot responded, banking away as Millie dove at Faisal’s F-15.

 

***

 

“Damn! It’s another rear-aspect warning!” Faisal reacted to the warble of his radar warning receiver and looked in the rear-view mirrors to see the Cobra drone swooping in for the kill. Cannon fire splintered the thin aluminum skin of the fighter, as Faisal cranked his throttles to the stops and tried to dive for safety.

 

Millie, the drone, was flying on her last-resort mission profile, that of a self-guided suicide missile. Lighting off the afterburner, the drone accelerated right for a spot between the F-15’s big tails.

 

The drone filled Faisal’s mirrors and matched every jink and bank and turn Faisal tried using to evade. Soon, Captain Faisal became frustrated and leveled off to catch a breath. The drone crashed right into the Eagle’s center of mass and cleaved the fighter in half in midair. Both airframes exploded violently over the sunny Saudi skies.


	9. Floating Endlessly on a Dune Sea

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Six

Floating Endlessly on a Dune Sea

 

King Khalid Military City

18 July, 2002

0700 hours local time

 

Ground personnel shuffled clear of the large helipads as a pair of US Army CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopters flared for landing, their twin turbine-powered rotors kicking up a miniature sandstorm as their large bodies settled in for a soft landing. As soon as they touched down on the helicopter field, ground crews ran out to chock the landing gears, and the cargo ramps dropped to the ground.

 

Dust still swirled around the transports as their engines wound down, but the passengers were in a hurry. Within moments of touchdown, ten Joes and twenty-five green shirts began unloading their duffel bags, personal weapons, and a handful of four-wheeled quad runners to carry them around the base. A shipment scheduled to arrive from Dhahran later that day was bringing in command post equipment like satellite radios and secure scramblers.

 

Duke stepped off the lead Chinook and lowered a set of tinted dust goggles over his eyes. “Gee, this place is just as bad as I remember it.” He turned to the troopers unloading the quad runners and gear. “Alright, you goldbricks, let’s get the fucking lead out! We’ve got loads to move!”

 

Scarlett exited the helicopter and covered her mouth with a gloved hand until the blowing sand settled. She rested her other hand on Duke’s shoulder and gave him a gentle shake. When Duke turned to face her with a smile, she asked, “What can I do, Duke?”

 

Duke laughed for a moment. “You can do everything you set your mind to, Red. But I could use some help with finding our billets. Think you can manage?”

 

“I’ll get us a single with a California King to share. I just hope the room rates are cheap,” Scarlett replied with a flirtatious giggle. She set out to find the sprawling base’s Chief of Quarters with a copy of the Joes’ orders to get a line on their temporary accommodations.

 

Crypto arrived at Duke’s vantage point next, tucking a thick sheaf of papers into folders to keep the rotor wash from blowing them away. “Yo, Duke. I have some more intelligence updates from CENTCOM.”

 

“What do you have, kid?” Duke asked, reaching for a three-page typed summary report. He read through the summary quickly, assessing the reports of Iraqi troop movements and the associated diatribes from the CENTCOM analysts. “I think the analysts they have working in Bahrain like to scare the brass hats. Have you read these?”

 

“Yes, I have, actually,” Crypto replied slowly. “And I have to think about the point of view that Cobra’s involved, which changes our alliance’s military outlook considerably. With Saddam moving almost two army corps south, it’s like he’s posturing just as he did in 1990 with Kuwait, and we’ll need several more divisions to keep them away.”

 

Crypto remembered the graphics from a situation map of the area and explained his analysis further. “However, he has a vanguard of Cobra troops advising his units and attacking ours. This leads me to believe that even the best Iraqi soldiers manning their frontier are simply cannon fodder and shielding the Cobras. If there’s any sort of alliance going on between Cobra and Iraq, it’s a good bet that Destro’s business sense is going to put most of their forces in the infrastructure while they let the local troops go out to die.”

 

“That comes as no surprise, kid,” Duke said. “Those slithering snakes will always be the sneakiest customers in the store. What about you? Are you considering taking the foray into Baghdad and joining the hunt for Saddam’s head?”

 

Crypto visibly cringed at Duke’s question. He had agreed to go with the team into Iraq to take the fight to the enemy, but at the mention of infiltrating Baghdad... Duke didn’t know that there were some sealed parts to his DD-201 file about a little job called Operation Megiddo...

 

Crypto’s mind wandered back to a cold night in 1993, and a covert SEAL raid in Baghdad. His mission as part of the SEAL platoon was to assault the Ministry of Information, among other locales, to find evidence of Iraqi development plans for weapons of mass destruction. What he found at the time was even more evil, when hidden files came to light that implied Cobra was already double-dealing in the Muslim nation.

 

He also thought about the actual raid, and its fateful conclusion, where he knelt on the steps of the Ministry of Information, cradling the lifeless body of Yeoman 1st Class Penelope Scott, the SEAL-trained intelligence specialist that got him through the rigors of preparing for the infiltration, and a girl who he had gotten very close to in the days before Baghdad.

 

In the final analysis of the mission, Crypto’s SEAL platoon lost four of its operators injured, and the death of Yeoman Scott affected Crypto very badly. He almost died on that mission too, fighting a rear guard action so that the SEALS could recover their wounded and make it to the extraction point safely. After Operation Megiddo, Crypto left the Division of Naval Intelligence, vowing at the time never to return to Baghdad again.

 

***

 

Duke’s hand on Crypto’s shoulder broke the latter’s reverie. “Kid, are you alright?” Duke asked with a concerned look on his face.

 

“Shit. Sorry Duke,” Crypto stammered. “I was just thinking back about Baghdad.”

 

Duke put on a puzzled look. None of the Joes to his knowledge had been on an op to Baghdad before, Crypto included. However, there were organizations that liked to keep their jobs off the books, too. “You’ve been to Baghdad before?”

 

“Yep, and I have very little that I’m allowed to say about the experience.” Crypto didn’t want to volunteer many of the facts surrounding Operation Megiddo. “Between you and me, Duke, I was there on a company job, and it didn’t turn out well. Coming home from Baghdad was when I decided to retire from active duty.”

 

Duke made a mental note to get his clearance increased enough to read the black portions of Crypto’s older service records. “Well, if you’ve been to Baghdad, then I know why the General pushed to have you get out here with the advance party. I know you backpedaled in New York and Scarlett had to have your girlfriend convince you to at least come to KKMC with us. We’re really going to need your leadership and experience about the city out there.”

 

Crypto looked down at his feet, watching for a swirl of sand to hide him from the world. “I’m... I’m not sure I can go back there, Duke. There’s a lot you don’t know... a lot more than the official debriefs and transcripts that are posted in my DD-201 even.”

 

Duke stepped down from the supply crate he was using to oversee the unloading of the Chinooks and waved to catch Steeler’s attention. “It’s critical to the mission that we can make the most of your experiences over there. Why don’t you tell me about Baghdad over a beer? I’ll ask Scarlett to sit with us and we’ll keep you company, until your girlfriend arrives with General Tomahawk from Dhahran.”

 

Crypto nodded. “You’ve got yourself a deal, First Sergeant. That is, so long as the Saudis allow alcohol consumption on their base.”

 

Duke shook his head and then smiled. “It doesn’t matter what they allow and don’t allow. The Top Kick always has a way around the system.”

 

When Steeler arrived beside the cargo crate, Duke asked him how the unloading was progressing. “The Saudi liaison finally showed up, Duke. They have a warehouse about a kilometer from our accommodations for the staging area and command post. We’re moving the quad runners there and each Joe is keeping their personal weapons in their quarters.”

 

“Good deal, Steeler,” Duke said. “You take charge here and then we’ll get cracking on the main command post. Meet me with a status report on the second shipment by nineteen-hundred.” The tank officer nodded and walked back to the transport helicopters.

 

“Come on, kid,” Duke said to Crypto, pointing in the direction Scarlett had walked off in. “Let’s go check out the quarters. You look like you could use forty winks in your rack.”

 

***

 

Tampa, Florida – MacDill AFB

18 July, 2002

0600 hours local time

 

“Well, we’re here,” Flint said with a groan to Lady Jaye and Beach-Head as they felt the wheels of their Gulfstream C-20A executive jet touch down at MacDill Air Force Base. MacDill was Tampa’s primary military airport, and the top-security compound for Central Command’s headquarters was a short drive by motor vehicle away.

 

Lady Jaye yawned and curled up against Flint’s chest, pulling his arm tighter around her shoulders as she stirred herself awake. “Attention on deck,” she mumbled for only Flint to hear. “Boring milk run alert...”

 

Flint nodded in agreement with Lady Jaye’s quip. “You got it right on the head, Alison. But when the boss comes up with our orders, we need to follow them.” He turned to his side and saw Beach-Head was awake and watching the MacDill parking ramp getting closer through his window. “Beach-Head, you get the green shirts organized. There’s a couple of M-1114 Armored Hummers and four M-706 security vehicles that were sent from the CENTCOM motor pool for us to drive over to the compound. We’ll be meeting up with some new provisional Joes that Tomahawk transferred to us when we get there.”

 

Beach-Head nodded without diverting his gaze from the window. “You’re the honcho, Flint. Thy will be done.” He adjusted the pistol holster attached to his LBE gear so that it hung more comfortably while the plane rolled to a stop. As soon as the plane’s exit door was opened and the air stairs lowered, Beach-Head got to his feet and clapped his hands loudly. “All right all you ladies! This ain’t no rest and recreation trip to Disney World! Get off the bus, collect your personal gear and weapons, and form up for ground vehicle assignments! Let’s move, let’s move!”

 

***

 

Elsewhere in Tampa:

 

Dressed in touristy civilian clothes, Firefly, Scrap-Iron, Zarana and Bloodpool were clustered around a large table in one of Tampa’s many ‘greasy spoon’ diners, waiting for the two Crimson Guard agents that had accompanied them down from Rhinebeck, New York.

 

“... So, what you’re telling me is that Cobra Commander wants the six of us to infiltrate the CENTCOM headquarters complex with no other support, and somehow find where the meeting with the President is taking place, AND attempt to eliminate the CENTCOM commanding general, if not the President? I still think our Commander has really lost his marbles. None of us are going to make the flight to San Francisco to rendezvous with Zartan and the Drednoks.”

 

“Watch your tongue, Bloodpool,” Scrap-Iron warned. “The Commander has had people killed for less than dissent in their words.”

 

“Yeah, like you all never once entertained such thoughts,” Bloodpool groaned.

 

“If we did, we never told anyone who could report back to the man on top, you arrogant asshole,” Scrap-Iron said in reply. “Shall we get back to planning this adventure?”

 

“By all means,” Firefly whispered from his corner of the table. “Hopefully the Siegies will be back soon from their reconnaissance of the perimeter.”

 

Zarana sipped at an extra-tall glass of grape soda and played with her short stack of jelly donuts as she listened. She twisted a tuft of her pink hair between her fingers and looked over the men around her. “Do any of you wankers have an idea where we should even begin?”

 

The trio of male Cobra agents shook their heads. Scrap-Iron spoke up with the group’s overall sentiments. “With the tight security, we have no fucking clue. If there are Joes anywhere around here, it makes matters worse.”

 

Zarana nodded. “Well, we do have some assets that I know about. The Drednoks had a cell in Tampa, manned by a couple biker gangs that we had absorbed into our group. They’d make good cannon fodder. There’s also a warehouse in the city that Zartan used as a front to help move Cobra arms and equipment into the US from the Gulf of Mexico. Last time I checked, there was a mothballed shipment of CLAW gliders there, plus some ordnance. If we can distract the physical security and somehow disable the electronic defenses like radars and motion sensors, a group in CLAWS can orbit over the compound while a team on the ground can spot for the target. We can outfit some of the CLAWS to fly by remote guidance and load them with bunker buster glide bombs.”

 

Firefly nodded. “That may be the advantage we need to fulfill the attack. But how do we defeat their security measures?”

 

Zarana took a long slug of her grape soda. “We’ll work that out. Let’s see what the compound recon turns up before we set down too many details.”

 

***

 

CENTCOM HQ, MacDill AFB

0700 hours local time

 

The column of armored patrol vehicles was admitted to the separate compound that housed CENTCOM HQ as Flint visually inspected the security measures that had been put in place. He rode in the commander’s cupola of the lead M-706 armored car, which was a four-wheeled, boxy vehicle derived from the Vietnam-era V-100 Commando. The Commando series of armored cars had traditionally been used by the Air Force for their airbase security and special reaction units. It had also seen service with some special-task Army MP units.

 

Lady Jaye and a green shirt driving the M-706 were inside the lead vehicle’s fighting compartment as they rolled onto the grounds they were going to be protecting. Jaye reached over to where Flint was standing to see outside the vehicle, and gave him a playful pinch on the rump. Flint ignored her advance as he made mental notes about potential flaws in the compound’s defensive stance.

 

Lady Jaye opened and then leaned out of one of the side hatches and got Flint’s attention with a smile. “So you’ve taken to ignoring me, Warrant Officer Cranky-Pants?”

 

“No, Lady Jaye,” Flint yelled down from the commander’s cupola. “We’ve got our work cut out for us. Have the driver take us right to Security Control.”

 

***

 

CENTCOM HQ Security Control:

 

“... We have our orders, Lieutenant, Sir, and they’re the genuine article! Just assign us our passes so we can hook up with the G.I. Joe security team already!” The tall and burly Army Sergeant 1st Class carried an air of Special Ops around him, but for the past half hour, his assertions didn’t convince the Air Force officer at Security Control that his credentials were the real thing.

 

Another soldier, a Corporal, stood in the corner of the Security Officer’s bailiwick and tried to wait patiently because he had the same orders as the boisterous Spec Ops NCO that was browbeating the Air Force Police lieutenant. “Umm, Sarge, maybe they can make a phone call to Washington or something?”

 

“There should be no need to, Switchblade,” the SFC replied in the corporal’s direction, not taking his eyes off the security officer. “We have legal orders in hand to meet up with a G.I. Joe unit commander named Flint here at MacDill.” He turned to fully face the security officer again. “You really need to check the orders again. My code name is Crater, transferred down from Delta Force, and this here is Switchblade, reporting in from the Airborne School at Fort Benning. We have orders to join up with Warrant Officer Flint of the G.I. Joe Team, today.”

 

“Well, it sure seems this Flint guy is pretty famous ‘round these parts. Ah shouldn’t get jealous, should ah...?” A feminine Southern accent wafted in from the security control waiting room. “Ah have orders to join up with the warrant officer as well. I’m Sergeant Christine Jamison, code-named Tailwind, one of the Joes’ new unmanned drone pilots. I’m over from the UAV development center at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Can someone tell me where ah can park my Hummer? It’s got some special equipment on board.”

 

The Security Officer was fuming at being harangued by the largesse of activity all of a sudden. But he knew his headache was about to get worse when he glanced out the picture window of his office in the guard house and saw an M-1114 Armored Hummer squeal to a stop with a cloud of dust behind. Three more men in camouflaged battle dress leaped out of it like they were teenagers at ‘Make Out Mountain’ looking for girls.

 

Switchblade looked over to where the officer had fixed his gaze. “Not to worry, sir. Those three are part of our element too. Vertigo and Airfoil are crazy jumpers from Benning too, and Rollbar is one hell of a menace behind the wheel from Fort Hood. He met us over at Tampa International Airport and I’m shocked we got here with all our teeth. May we please get our passes so we don’t piss our new commander off?”

 

The Security Officer shook his head and inspected the orders jackets one more time, as Flint’s column of Hummers and armored cars pulled into the guard house’s parking area. Flint’s command presence was palatable, like it hung in the air for a hundred meters around where he walked.

 

The whooping cluster of provisional Joes, Vertigo, Airfoil and Rollbar, immediately stopped their joking antics when they spotted Flint, Beach-Head and Lady Jaye crossing the asphalt parking lot. Quickly snapping to attention, they respectfully saluted the senior Joes as they passed, and identified themselves to Flint.

 

“You mean to say that you sorry sons of bitches are three of our new provisional front-line Joes?” Beach-Head shouted, looking each one over from mere inches away. “This looks like some kind of fucking glamour detail! Are you slimy nuggets from Hollywood or something? I saw that happy horseshit you were doing when we pulled up, and you’re going to sorely miss your ‘get out and have fun’ time around me! You owe me twenty asphalt kisses each! Get the fuck to it, scumbags!”

 

Vertigo, Airfoil and Rollbar developed serious looks and dove for the deck, chanting as they performed their pushups. Flint clapped Beach-Head on the shoulder to calm him down, and the trio entered Security Control.

 

Crater waited until Flint was about to step through the door and called Switchblade and Tailwind to attention. “Sir, Crater, Switchblade and Tailwind are reporting for duty as your new provisional Joes, sir! Ah, we’re having a bit of trouble obtaining our security passes, sir.”

 

Flint turned to face the Security Officer. “You look like you have a problem, Lieutenant.” He pulled out a cellular phone and prepared to dial a private number on it. “Maybe I should just get General Franks’ chief of staff on the line and take things out of your hands.”

 

The security officer paled and nodded, unlocking a drawer and calling for a pair of enlisted clerks. “How many passes did you say you needed?”

 

***

 

King Khalid Military City:

 

Klaxons and horns sounded all over the sprawling Saudi army base as the whine of low-flying Saudi Arabian Panavia ‘Tornado’ interceptors from the Hafr-al-Batin wing shrieked across the afternoon sky.

 

Duke, Scarlett and Crypto were walking from their temporary barracks to the base’s dining facility when the general alarm sounded, and Duke quickly pulled out a pair of binoculars to scan the skies.

 

“Attention, all personnel! Man your anti-aircraft defense posts! A formation of ground-attack aircraft has been spotted by interceptors fifty miles north of us and is penetrating our defense envelope! All I-HAWK and Chaparral batteries stand to full alert!” Saudi troops started running to their posts and the handful of American airborne soldiers on their way to the front lines along with the Joe Team members sought fighting positions as the message was repeated over the speakers in Arabic.

 

After a few minutes, the scrambling of running soldiers died down as the majority of personnel had found their battle positions or had gotten under cover. “Enemy aircraft sighted ten miles from base! Interceptors unable to break enemy formation and are evacuating our defensive envelope! Inbound bandits are Cobra Rattlers flying with the Iraqi Air Force! Prepare for ground attack!”

 

Crypto noticed that an older Oerlikon 20mm single-barreled air defense gun was set up in a firing pit near the cluster of barracks buildings. It was primarily a line-of-sight weapon, and most likely was left there as a last resort should the defensive SAM batteries around KKMC prove ineffective. He tugged at Scarlett’s sleeve and pointed to the gun. “Come on, Scarlett, let’s grab Duke and take some cover!”

 

***

 

“Rattler Flight, this is Wild Weasel. We’re ten miles out from the target. It looks like the Tornados were vectored to a safe heading away from KKMC. Turn your Master Arm switches on. Arm the burrowing bombs and thousand-pounders. Be ready for multiple ground radars. Our target is the headquarters buildings and early warning communications station of the Saudi Northern Command. If we can cut off their command and communications hub, they can’t coordinate with the troops on their front line. We’ll attack in pairs from north to south. Dorsal gunners, stay sharp!”

 

The flight of four Rattler ground attack planes had avoided being shot down by the aggressive low-level dog fighting tactics of the Saudi Tornado drivers, but their threat boards lit up like Christmas trees when they were acquired by the powerful track-while-scan I-HAWK and Chaparral air defense radars of the Saudi Air Force’s KKMC base defense squadron.

 

“Wild Weasel to Rattler Flight, we’re at the initial point. I’m leading the first run in to cut us a path through the Saudi ADA radar posts and SAM sites. Bravo section, follow us in after three minutes.” Wild Weasel’s Rattler and that of his wingman dropped out of formation and screamed towards KKMC low enough to nearly kick up desert sand clouds from their afterburners. The Bravo section of two Rattlers, made one lazy circle in the sky before preparing to dive into their own attack run.

 

***

 

Duke was scanning the sky from the Oerlikon gun pit, while Crypto was uncrating drums of 20mm ammunition and loading the piece. Duke’s hand shot skyward as he spotted two black dots over the horizon. “Holy shit! There they are! Two Rattlers are coming in real low!”

 

Crypto climbed into the gunner’s seat and rested the large padded gunner’s cradle against his shoulders. Scarlett helped him get braced by leaning her weight against his back while he lifted himself into the gunner’s cradle and sat in the gun’s angled seat, sliding his feet into special stirrups fixed to the gun’s traverse mechanism. He pulled on the lanyard that loaded and armed the 20mm gun, and then centered the lead Rattler in the cross-hairs of the optical sight by kicking the stirrups and rotating the mount. “The gun is loaded and power-assist is up, Duke! We’re ready as soon as they come into range!”

 

Crypto also turned down the thumb wheel that unlocked the Oerlikon’s safety mechanism and put his hands on the twin set-triggers for the rapid-fire automatic gun. The firing handles were also joysticks, used to control the power-assist machinery that traversed the weapon while the gunner tracked his targets.

 

***

 

“Lead, this is Rattler Two. I have smoke columns at nine o’clock!” Wild Weasel’s wingman reported his spotting the pair of I-HAWK medium-range air defense missiles leaping into the sky to defend KKMC. “The ground radar has a hard lock on us and it looks like the missiles have been set to terminal guidance! Take evasive action!”

 

“Two from Lead, hold your line of travel until the missiles reach high TRM and then evade!” Wild Weasel ordered over the inter-plane channel. “Keep it steady over there, kid!”

 

The I-HAWK missiles rose up over the defensive belt around KKMC in a tall arc, quickly climbing to their engagement altitude and then nosing over to align with their targets. Once the internal seekers locked onto the Rattlers, the missiles went into high TRM, Terminal Rotational Movement. This meant that the small control surfaces on the missile fins put the weapon into a slight spin to calibrate the internal seeker’s gyro-stabilization system and changed the airflow around the weapon enough to start a generator fan turning which provided the needed micro-volts to power the seeker in its terminal guidance to the target.

 

The drawback to the way the seeker system worked was if the target made a rapid directional change while the guidance unit was powering up, the onboard seeker could lose its inertial lock on the target. But the whole trick took split-second timing at best.

 

Seat-of-the-pants turns of about ninety degrees at full afterburner was the normal tactic to avoid missiles at high TRM, but in the case of the Rattlers, they could duck around ground clutter to confuse their radar signature, or locate a fixed structure or ground contour and convert to their VTOL mode, thus making them look like a fixed object. Coming to a vertical hover would confuse the missile seekers because they assumed that their target was always a moving object and their onboard software eliminated stationary objects as non-targets.

 

“Two to Lead, they’ve both homed in on me! I need to evade now!” Rattler Two still held a straight course, flying towards the barracks complex which was between the SAM ring and the Saudi command and control center.

 

Wild Weasel counted off a few quick seconds in his head as he watched the missiles begin to spin. “They’re in high TRM! Evade now, Two!”

 

“Dropping into ground clutter and hovering, Lead,” Rattler Two responded quickly, as the pilot jerked the controls and throttle into the right positions for the maneuver. The broad, hinged wing and engine assemblies of the Rattler rotated to the vertical, and the plane rapidly slowed.

 

***

 

“Hit the fucking dirt! That Rattler’s gonna sit right on top of us!” Duke grabbed Scarlett by her waist and hauled her out of the gun pit as the sleek shape of the Rattler came closer and closer. “Crypto! Get the hell out of that gun emplacement!”

 

Dust began to fly as the Rattler’s jet engines stirred up the ground below it and the plane slowly moved forward across the rows of barracks buildings to avoid the target lock of the I-HAWK missiles.

 

“I can’t hear you, Duke! There’s too much noise around here!” Crypto yelled, but the whine of the powerful jet engines drowned out his voice before Duke could make out what he said. From a distance, Duke and Scarlett watched as Crypto raised an arm to shield his eyes, and then pulled his dust goggles over his face and buckled his Kevlar helmet over top of them.

 

“Bracketing target to engage!” Crypto called out amid the chaotic noise, as the barrel of the Oerlikon tracked upwards. When his eyes told him the barrel was on target, he depressed the hand triggers.

 

Smoke and fire belched forth from the 20mm gun as the rapid-fire weapon spat a stream of rounds skyward. Duke and Scarlett heard the characteristic pom-pom report of the weapon as Crypto led the rounds into the left wing of the Rattler, hitting vital systems like the fuel bladder, fuel pump and one of the engines that kept the plane in its hover.

 

***

 

“Two to Lead, I’m taking ground fire! Some jackass down there got some gun rounds off! Port fuel tank and turbo pump have lost integrity. And I think I have an engine problem! I’m re-configuring to normal flight!”

 

Wild Weasel arced his Rattler around to the I-HAWK missiles, which were still aiming themselves towards Rattler Two, and knocked them out of the air with a long burst of his 30mm nose gun. “Your tail is clear, Two. Get up to altitude and let me look your port wing over!”

 

Duke and Scarlett leaped out into the street between the rows of barracks as they watched the Rattler’s wings rotating again. Firing their M-16A2 rifles, they tried to punch through the pilot’s armored ‘bathtub’ cockpit or the dome bubble over the dorsal gun.

 

Crypto turned the Oerlikon through 180 degrees and fired off two more bursts, scoring hits on the tail planes and rear engine of the Rattler as it rose back into the air with a blast of hot air from its VTOL jet engines.

 

The additional hits from Crypto’s 20mm fire set off hydraulic failure alarms in Rattler Two’s cockpit. The Aero-Viper at the controls fought the stick as the plane threatened to stall and nosed forward towards the ground. He was unable to compensate for the shutdown of his port engine in time with power from the others, and the Rattler began to pitch over abnormally.

 

There was no time for the Aero-Viper to call a mayday or start the ejection sequence to punch himself and his gunner out of the plane. The attack jet flew out uncontrollably over the KKMC defensive perimeter and finally dipped the port wing into the desert floor, catching the ground and causing the Rattler to twist over nose first, crashing into a sand dune and scattering burning parts, fuel and ordnance everywhere. The flight crewmen were impaled onto their control panels from the sheer force of the impact and had no chance of survival when the ordnance and fuel lines exploded.

 

***

 

“Jesus!” Wild Weasel swore as he banked the Rattler around the closest I-Hawk missile battery and blasted away at it with his 30mm cannon, disabling two launchers and killing the battery crewmen in the radar van and control trailer. He was filled with rage at how a ground gunner had gotten the better of one of his attack planes and the best pilot in his squadron.

 

After knocking out a second radar post, which controlled several of the short-range Chaparral missile launchers, he ordered Bravo Section on to attack the command headquarters. “This is Wild Weasel, I’m going to find the bastards that shot Two down and take out their gun. Bravo Section, the first run on the command post is yours. You are cleared to attack and take out the target!”

 

Rattler Three, the senior pilot of Bravo Section, replied to his flight leader. “Three to Lead, roger that; we’re at the initial point and are making our attack run. Thanks for clearing a path. COBRA!”

 

***

 

Duke and Scarlett ran back to the gun pit where Crypto was dusting himself off and keeping an eye skyward for other Rattlers that might come into range. When the Joes reached the Oerlikon, Duke smacked the side of Crypto’s Kevlar helmet and gave him an icy look while the officer peeled off his dust goggles and looked in his direction.

 

Duke didn’t let Crypto get the first word out. “You might be one fucking hero, kid, but I never figured you to be a stupid one. What the hell possessed you to stay here when that fucking Rattler was going to squeeze you flat under its ass or roast you alive with the engines? Are you REALLY as fucking dumb as you look?”

 

“I had to kill the bandit, Duke,” Crypto replied. “He would have dropped his ordnance on the base if I didn’t try. And now he’s dead and we’re alive.”

 

“Don’t be in such a damn hurry to become a dead hero, kid,” Duke said in a commanding tone. “I don’t need to be in charge of a team of dead heroes. I like my heroes among the living, if you fucking please!”

 

Duke saw Crypto lean towards him and heard the sound of Wild Weasel’s approaching Rattler simultaneously. He nearly reacted defensively to Crypto’s outstretched hand as it pushed him down into the gun pit. “Duke, Scarlett, take cover! Incoming!” Crypto shouted, while the hand still on the gun’s controls jerked at the traverse joystick, bringing the 20mm back around to line up on the diving attack plane.

 

***

 

“There you are, you little chickadee,” Wild Weasel grinned under his oxygen mask as he pickled the weapons selector switch on his control stick. “You peppered my wingman. Now, it’s time to die. From Hell’s hot, I stab at thee. For hatred’s sake, I spit my breath at thee.”

 

Wild Weasel nosed the Rattler over into a screaming dive from about five thousand feet, sighting right in on the Oerlikon gun pit. He selected the plane’s massive 30mm nose gun, which weighed as much as a Volkswagen Beetle and was a bear to trim when the Rattler was in normal flight.

 

***

 

An American Hummer rolled up to the Joes at the gun pit, and a pair of 82nd Airborne Division troopers piled out of the utility truck with a Stinger missile launcher. They seemed to be novices at handling the weapon, trying to assemble it “by committee”.

 

Duke sprinted across the dirt street to the Hummer and yanked the firing controller and missile tube out of the hands of the startled soldiers. “Look up in the sky, you parachute bums! That fucking attack jet is not coming down here to shake hands with you, give you a reach-around and ask, “How do you do?” Stand the fuck clear before you go home in body bags!” Duke had the sighting system snapped onto the missile tube in about five seconds, and quickly heaved the launcher over his shoulder, taking aim as he positioned himself to engage the Rattler.

 

Crypto had opened fire with the 20mm, trying to bracket Wild Weasel in a deadly fire pattern that would shred his wings and engines. As he fired, Duke got the Stinger locked onto the Rattler and shouted “Stand clear! Missile back blast!” He didn’t wait for his peripheral vision to catch the airborne troopers diving behind the Hummer. The Stinger blasted its way out of the lightweight launch tube and pointed into the sky like a bloodhound on the trail.

 

***

 

“Wild Weasel, there’s a missile warning! Heat seeker!” the Aero-Viper manning Wild Weasel’s dorsal gun yelled from his station. “It must be a Stinger; it launched from near the gun pit!” Wild Weasel determinedly held his course and dive angle. He was going to perforate the gunner that killed his wingman, no matter what.

 

“Don’t worry about the Stinger, gunner. If you’re afraid of it, then hit the silk and take your chances with the Joes down there! Otherwise, shut the fuck up and let me drive!” Wild Weasel calmly set the firing trigger on his stick for the 30mm gun and lined up with the Oerlikon gun pit that was spraying fire in his direction. Already, 20mm rounds were clanging as they ricocheted off the titanium bathtub that surrounded his cockpit.

 

Wild Weasel’s desire for revenge was all-consuming, until a radio call from his second section caught his attention. “Rattler three to Lead, our mission failed! We were almost over the target when a Chaparral barrage and heavy AA gunfire drove us off course! Four’s release controls jammed after he took a gun hit, and a Chaparral turned him into a long black streak on the desert floor! All of my ordnance is expended, but I can’t tell if I hit our target! I’m bingo fuel; climbing out to a safe altitude to return to base.”

 

Three’s report seemed to hang in the air like a discernable pall of failure. Wild Weasel should have joined forces with his second section, and maybe all three planes combined could have beaten the inner defensive belt of troops and ADA weapons. Now half of his flight had been killed. But the voice of the Aero-Viper over the tactical frequency hadn’t stopped.

 

“Three to Lead, please acknowledge with orders... Holy shit! I’ve been acquired by an Army Crotale mobile battery! Jesus Christ! Multiple SAM launches!” The pilot flying Rattler Three was desperately trying to avoid the rising Crotale missiles, which were ultra-accurate mobile systems. He triggered off flares and chaff to confuse the weapons, but his low fuel state meant that maneuvering would put him in jeopardy over his own home base if he survived the encounter. “Shit! We’re bracketed! Three to Lead, the rag heads have got us!” Three’s radio transmitter buzzed with loud static a few moments after the last frantic transmission, and then fell silent.

 

Wild Weasel had launched flares of his own to distract the Stinger launch. His timing was just right, as the heat seeker fell off his tail and exploded over a barracks building where the flare had dropped. He triggered the 30mm gun and rounds began to walk down the dirt street right for the Oerlikon gun pit and Crypto.

 

***

 

“Fuck!” Duke shouted when he saw the Stinger explode harmlessly behind the Rattler, starting a fire atop the barracks building where the warhead went off. Everything seemed to slow down surreally when he heard the electric buzz of the Rattler’s copy of the GAU-8 gun. The high-velocity 30mm bullets kicked up columns of sand and dust as they hit the dirt roadway.

 

Duke shoved Scarlett into an open barracks doorway and with a hand motion, ordered the paratroops of the Stinger team to stay behind their Hummer. He sprinted back across the street towards the gun pit, trying to beat the stream of 30mm rounds to Crypto.

 

Crypto, meanwhile, was returning fire steadfastly, training the Oerlikon right on the vital organs of the Rattler. He scored a hit on Wild Weasel’s middle engine, right between the tail planes, and smoke began to pour out of it. But the angry hornets coming from the tank buster’s nose gun were on a collision course. So he let go of the triggers as late as he could, and wriggled out of the gunner’s cradle, leaping aside to the ground in time to avoid sharing the fate of the gun pit. The stream of bullets tore the unshielded AA gun to pieces as each round struck.

 

Both Duke and Crypto were caught in the cloud of destruction the 30mm gun threw up as it wrecked the Oerlikon emplacement. Duke fell to the street as pain radiated from his leg. Crypto fell sideways in an odd way as it looked like a piece of the Oerlikon flew free and knocked him on the side of his Kevlar helmet.

 

***

 

“Damn! Engine three is hit, and we’re nearing bingo fuel. It looks like we get to dump our ordnance over the desert and return home alone.” Wild Weasel hung his head as he thought about the other six Aero-Vipers in his flight, and then nursed his jet back to base, leaving his unarmed weapons behind to lighten the plane up and save fuel for the trip.

 

***

 

Scarlett ran to Duke’s side, with the two 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers on her heels. One of the young men had produced a first aid kit from their Hummer and handed it to her while she looked over the deep cut in Duke’s leg from the shrapnel generated by Wild Weasel’s strafing run.

 

Duke winced in pain when Scarlett actually pulled a small shard of steel out of his leg and then bandaged it tightly to control the bleeding. “Go find Crypto, Scarlett,” Duke ordered in a weak voice. “I’ll be okay. He got hit in the head. Go help him!”

 

The two Stinger crewmen ran the final twenty steps or so to the gun pit and found that Crypto had been knocked unconscious. A large part of the gun assembly had not only hit his head, but it was still lying on his left arm after he fell to the sand. A trickle of crimson traced a path out from under Crypto’s Kevlar helmet and down his cheek to form a pool of red on a patch of sand.

 

The airborne troopers quickly got the wrecked assembly moved aside, and they picked Crypto up by his shoulders and legs, hauling him to the back of their Hummer. “Come on, Sergeants! We need to take this guy right to the base hospital!” The men laid Crypto on the rear bed of the Hummer, stretching him out over the padded troop seats on one side.

 

Scarlett laid Duke on the other set of troop seats so he could keep his leg raised, and then grabbed both their hands while sitting on the floor between them. The airborne troopers jumped inside the cab of the vehicle, and got the vehicle in motion without delay.


	10. Incursions

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Seven

Incursions

 

***

 

Transient Personnel & Bachelor Officers’ Quarters (BOQ)

United States Naval Station, Manama, Bahrain

18 July 2002, 0700 hours, local time

 

The sprawling W-shaped complex of multi-story buildings that comprised the main transient personnel BOQ had been full of activity up until the large number of Army and Air Force officers assigned to the headquarters of Central Command had packed up and moved over to Camp Doha in Qatar, the designated location for the ground forces’ primary command post. While occupancy of the neighboring transient personnel barracks was still close to capacity, general shore leave in the Bahraini capital of Manama was limited due to security and terrorist concerns and the positioning for war going on farther north.

 

With many of the minimal, apartment-like hospitality quarters vacant, the task for the local chief of quarters and a small army of supply clerks and sailors seconded from other duties was to check and clean the unoccupied spaces up for any incoming personnel that needed a place to stay while ashore in Bahrain. The demand was already present for the TP-BOQ, since a sizeable force of American warships had begun patrolling the Persian Gulf and stopping suspect cargo vessels, and many crews needed short-term housing for personnel rotating through assignments when the ships made port to be serviced or when captains granted emergency shore leave. There was also high demand placed on the growing on- and off-base housing facilities by the slowly expanding command and control elements of the United States Fifth Fleet, the major command traditionally responsible for naval forces operating in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean.

 

One of the early-morning maintenance details was being led by Petty Officer 1st Class David Thibodeaux, a Store Keeper rated enlisted sailor. As the naval equivalent to the Army’s Quartermasters, Thibodeaux had the unwelcome job of clean-up duty for his part of the small permanent BOQ staff.

 

He strode calmly among the cluster of apartments on the task log for his detail, as supply seamen, facilities stewards and personnel on ‘punishment duty’ made the necessary fix-ups to each space, much like the operations behind the scenes of any modern hotel. Mostly supervising or helping out individual people in the detail, SK1 Thibodeaux had little to do himself outside of making sure the work was progressing steadily.

 

Thibodeaux’s reverie was broken when a member of his detail came running to him down the hallway, her face etched with a look of fright. Seaman Jane Rogers, an apprentice aviation stores clerk from the naval station’s aircraft maintenance department, stopped before SK1 Thibodeaux and bent over panting to catch her breath.

 

“Seaman Rogers, calm down,” Thibodeaux said slowly, supporting the younger female by the shoulders and leaning her against the closest wall. “What’s going on?”

 

“There’s a man tied up in the closet of apartment eleven-oh-two,” SN Rogers replied with a look of terror on her face. “He fell out when I opened the door to check for lost and found. He... he looks... dead.”

 

SK1 Thibodeaux summoned another member of his detail to run to the main lobby and have the CQ contact the BOQ master-at-arms and the base’s Shore Patrol unit, along with a paramedic team from the base hospital for good measure. Meanwhile, he ran in the other direction to see to the hapless victim from the closet.

 

Reaching apartment 1102, SK1 Thibodeaux saw what had scared SN Rogers so much. A partially-dressed man, wearing Marine Corps-issue t-shirt, BDU trousers and block cap was lying face down on the floor. He appeared to have been unconscious for a few hours or was already near death from being gagged and restrained in the confines of the closet. Thibodeaux acted quickly, loosening the man’s bonds from his wrists and ankles, taking off the OD green terrycloth towel that was stuffed into his mouth as a gag, and rolling him onto his back to help get him breathing again.

 

By the time Thibodeaux had begun working on the Marine, Rogers had returned with a stack of clean towels for the man’s head, which she worked under his neck to help elevate him for CPR. “He’s got a weak pulse and is breathing a bit more on his own, but he’s unresponsive,” Thibodeaux relayed to Rogers as she gently cradled his head and listened for sounds of air rushing from his mouth or nose.

 

After a few moments, the entirety of Thibodeaux’s detail had clustered in the hallway outside apartment 1102, and one of the base masters-at-arms, a member of the naval security and law enforcement unit, had arrived to usher the sailors out of the way. Chief Petty Officer (MAC) Max Wilson, a shift supervisor with the base master-at-arms and Shore Patrol force, had been running a security sweep in the building when the CQ had paged him over the 1-MC public address system. The security man brought a hospital corpsman to the scene when he responded to the incident in 1102.

 

“Petty Officer 1st Class Thibodeaux,” MAC Wilson ordered in an authoritative voice. “Stand relieved. I am sealing this location as a possible crime scene and taking charge of these spaces. Corpsman, please see to the victim.”

 

“He’s still alive,” Thibodeaux reported as he and SN Rogers stood and left the apartment, letting the Navy Hospital Corpsman look the Marine over. “Seaman Rogers located him in the apartment’s utility closet, bound and gagged. We found a Marine dog tag in the tongue of his boot, which says he’s named Morrow; Kyle Morrow.”

 

“Very well,” MAC Wilson said with a nod, pulling out a pad and pen to jot down notes from Thibodeaux’s report. “Get me a copy of the CQ rooming list and I’ll look for that name. The CID investigator may need to question both of you in detail once she arrives. For now, clear your detail from this hallway and continue with your duties. When the paramedics arrive, send them here without delay. Carry on, Petty Officer.”

 

“Aye, Chief,” Thibodeaux replied, steering SN Rogers out the door. MAC Wilson had already withdrawn a roll of yellow crime scene tape to run a length of it across the top of the apartment door that opened into the main hallway.

 

A few minutes later, Morrow was evacuated to an ambulance and the Naval CID investigator showed up, carrying a file folder of information that she had gathered from MAC Wilson’s initial report.

 

“Are we going with the usual forensics drill, ma’am?” Wilson asked the CID agent, Ensign Patricia Smith, who was an honor graduate of the prestigious John Jay School of Criminal Justice in New York as well as military law enforcement schools.

 

“Not this time, Chief Wilson,” Smith replied with a frown. “But we do have cause for concern. Your victim is a Chief Warrant Officer CW-3 Kyle Morrow, USMC. His personnel jacket at Washington Navy Yard and the Marine Personnel Management Directorate in Quantico shows that he is a senior cryptographic analyst. I tried requesting his current orders to find out why he was transferring through Bahrain and where he was going. The file was locked and classified under a SCIF heading. Until they patch him up at the hospital and bring him around, we won’t know what the total security risk is, since the rooming list says he signed out of the BOQ.”

 

Chief Petty Officer Wilson gasped at the thought of an infiltrator targeting a serviceman within the base and successfully taking his place before going into the combat zone. “It’s bad enough if an impostor got in here. Can you imagine what will happen when the guy posing as Mister Morrow gets to his unit?”

 

“I’m afraid to think about it,” Smith replied. “Hopefully we can get a lead so that the field unit commander can be notified. Until we get that lead, let’s scour the records we can get. Seal this apartment, Chief.”

 

***

 

Base Hospital, King Khalid Military City

18 July, 2002

1500 hours, local time

 

An American trauma care specialist yelled out to a group of Saudi soldiers as he ran into the KKMC military hospital, “Get two more gurneys outside! We have a pair of bad ones coming in!” All of the medical personnel in the facility that were lending a hand to care for the victims of the Cobra attack, both Saudi and American, were already tired from the mass of injured being brought in. However, they steadfastly hung on to every patient’s life that passed through the emergency room doors.

 

The Stinger crew from the 82nd Airborne Division that brought Duke, Scarlett and Crypto in had backed their Hummer up as close to the packed ambulance bay as possible, and then helped Scarlett bodily move Duke and Crypto over the vehicle’s tailgate and onto the gurneys brought out by the hospital orderlies.

 

The trauma care specialist, an Army Sergeant, quickly assessed the injuries of the two Joes as the cluster of people burst into the triage area of the emergency room. “Get a suture specialist for this one,” the trauma specialist called out, indicating Duke. “Massive puncture wound in the leg requiring irrigation and stitches. Move him right in to see a doctor!” As Duke’s gurney was diverted to a minor injuries area where the suture technicians were working, the specialist frowned as he tried to get vitals on Crypto and assess his injuries.

 

Shaking his head sadly, the trauma specialist barked out orders to get Crypto all the help the hospital could muster in the ER. “Get the crash team over here stat! We have a major concussion and definitely thready pulse! Respiration seems unsteady and other vitals aren’t registering with the machines! Get this guy into trauma room five and begin evaluations with a portable x-ray for his left arm! His consciousness level is extremely low! We need to figure out if he has a concussion or inter-cranial bleed!”

 

***

 

Scarlett had gone with Duke to the minor injuries area and watched with a concerned look as Duke gritted his teeth and let the enlisted suture technician sew up the lacerations in his thigh and stem the bleeding. She grabbed his hand and kissed it softly while Duke cringed and then relaxed his face when an ampoule of quick-inject morphine dulled his discomfort.

 

“Oh god, Duke, please pull through this. You took a really nasty piece of shrapnel while trying to save me. Please stay with us and get patched up. I love you so much.”

 

Duke’s eyes fluttered as the morphine put him into a mildly hallucinogenic state. “Scarlett... Check on Crypto... Make sure he wakes up... And call Steeler at the barracks... to make sure that... To make sure the team’s okay.”

 

Scarlett squeezed his hand in hers and pressed it against her cheek as the suture tech began to clean his wounds and repair the torn flesh. “I’ll find out how everyone is for you. Just let them fix you up, babe.”

 

***

 

A Saudi military nurse squeezed hard on Crypto’s right wrist and then dropped his hand loosely back onto the gurney. “There is still a thready pulse on this side!” She reached over to lift Crypto’s eyelids and flashed a penlight into each. “He’s got minimal pupil responses to stimuli.”

 

The triage sergeant was still in the room, helping to get Crypto’s BDU uniform and his Kevlar equipment removed so that the doctors had easier access to work on the injured analyst. As he pulled off the Fritz helmet, he noticed a patch of drying blood that had soaked the desert camouflage liner. “Doctor, look here! The patient has a massive head laceration on the left side, and it’s a bleeder! This may be why he hasn’t regained consciousness!”

 

The trauma surgeon that responded to the code team call looked over the injury and sighed with relief that it was mainly superficial. “Irrigate and patch the wound; in itself, the injury isn’t that bad, but the blood loss is keeping us from stabilizing him. Start an IV with normal saline wide open, and get fresh blood and a rapid infuser in here! We have a chance of keeping this guy out of a coma and preventing permanent damage! Move your asses!”

 

***

 

Tampa, Florida

0900 hours, local time

 

Jane and Fred, the two Cobra Crimson Guards that were assigned to help the Cobra agents in Tampa, strolled into the diner as a couple and found Zarana, Bloodpool, Firefly and Scrap-Iron still clustered around their table. They pulled up two empty chairs to sit across from the others and looked the group over with smiles.

 

Jane, a shapely female Siegie of about twenty-five began to recount their recon report. “We penetrated the base as a pair of Air National Guard utilities technicians with some forged orders to do preventive maintenance on the HVAC system. That compound has yet to get locked down, even though the news reports leaked out that both the President and General Franks have arrived in town. Air Force One is standing out in the open on the MacDill parking ramps, for God’s sake! The E-nothing enlisted men on guard duty didn’t even question our orders. It will be a small effort to get all six of us legitimate passes for when we’re ready to strike.”

 

Fred nodded at Jane’s report and then added a comment of his own. “As we were making like we were inspecting the HVAC systems in one of the office buildings, an officer ordered us to triple-check building fifty-one-ten and to be extra careful, because there were VIP’s on the base. Want to take three guesses who’s meeting in building 5110?”

 

“No need to guess, Jane,” Zarana replied, nibbling on a jelly donut and poking angrily at Bloodpool for grabbing onto her thigh as he shifted on the cramped U-shaped seat surrounding their table. “Get your damn hands off me, Bloodpool! Sod off, ya bloody wanker, and get yer jollies elsewhere!”

 

Bloodpool yanked his hand away and sneered. “Aw, Zarana, I didn’t know you cared.”

 

Firefly leaned forward to get everyone’s attention. “Okay then. We should use the local Drednok cell to draw away the security, at the same time infiltrating one or two of us undercover to check out building 5110. The rest of us will fly in the remote-guided CLAW gliders and cover the infiltration team’s escape. When should we go?”

 

“I say we go with this plan tomorrow night, after the security settles down from General Franks and the President being on site,” Bloodpool suggested.

 

“And I say you’re the least in rank among us and want to go off half-cocked,” Zarana retorted. “We’ll need a couple days to mobilize the local Drednoks and watch the facility for movement patterns. We also need to get in to see if any Joes have arrived to adjust the security measures. That will be critical in our plan of attack.”

 

“I’m not one for subtlety,” Scrap-Iron added. “But I agree that the plan must be solid before we go, because I’m not going to get captured over a hair-brained scheme.”

 

***

 

Base Hospital, KKMC

1745 hours, local time

 

“Phew!” sighed the ER trauma surgeon as he and several nurses finally got the large laceration on the side of Crypto’s head repaired with stitches. They had stabilized him for the blood loss with rapidly-infused blood products and plasma, but had to wait for his vitals to be steady before performing any repairs for fear of possible brain damage. Crypto had already awakened once after the stitching was completed and spoke to a nurse coherently, conscious of where he was and what had happened. Soon after, he was ordered an intensive cat scan and some sedatives to help him sleep while a neurosurgeon was called to consult over his injuries.

 

Scarlett pushed open the door to Crypto’s semi-private ER room and wheeled Duke in on a wheelchair. He had one of the legs of the chair raised to support his bandaged leg, although he seemed to be ready to leap right off the contraption at any moment. The nurse had indicated it was okay for them to speak, but to keep quiet and make it short.

 

Duke reached out and gingerly tapped on Crypto’s right shoulder. “Hey, kid. You look pretty good for a guy who shot down a couple of Cobra Rattlers at close range.” Crypto simply opened his eyes and smiled.

 

“Did... did they hit us bad, Duke?” Crypto asked in a wavering voice.

 

Duke shook his head and Scarlett smiled down at the officer. “They were after the command and communications bunkers on base that control the Saudi troop units,” Duke replied. “We were lucky to have broken up the Cobra attack plan. So far, I think we only took superficial damage to the base. But you look like hell, kid. Thank God you followed SOP and put on a brain bucket, otherwise we’d have been shoveling your head off the street with entrenching tools.”

 

Scarlett nudged Duke in the shoulder for trying to crack a tactless joke about Crypto’s head injuries. Duke blushed at Scarlett and continued. “Sorry, kid. They said you have a nasty hole under that bandage. But you did good out there nonetheless. I hope both of us are back to a hundred percent when General Tomahawk turns up to assign us a mission tasking.”

 

“What... What about Baghdad?” Crypto asked shakily, as the nurse approached with his prescribed sedative in a long needle. Crypto gave the nurse a dirty look as she tried to reach for his intravenous tubes.

 

“Shh!” Duke whispered. “No one’s supposed to know about that but us. So keep it dead silent. Have you reconsidered?”

 

“I think I want in, Duke. Those bastards are going to pay... They’re gonna pay for Yeoman Scott; and they’re going to pay for the shit they did to me back in the world.” Crypto’s eyes became dark, as he resolved himself to settle a personal debt with Saddam and Cobra.

 

Duke’s eyes changed from the hard top sergeant to a softer, brotherly demeanor. “Kid, you can’t do it for revenge. It’ll eat you up inside, even though it probably has for years already. Revenge always turns buddies into posthumous heroes, and I don’t want to see that with you. We’ll talk before the general gets here. But for now, focus on healing up.”

 

The nurse dismissed Duke and Scarlett with a wave of her hand, as she took one more set of vitals and then helped Crypto get comfortable for his trip to the CT scanner room. Duke wasn’t happy to be separated from his injured teammate, but relented when the nurse shot him a nasty look of her own. “Okay, okay. I’m just looking out for my trooper here.” He called in Crypto’s direction as Scarlett turned him for the door, “I’ll have some of the guys meet you in the CT room, kid. Keep the faith, sailor!”

 

***

 

MacDill AFB, Tampa, Florida

0915 hours, local time

 

Beach Head stood atop an M-706 armored car as he watched the provisional and experienced Joes running through a ‘crash action response’ drill. “Come on, you pantywaists! Get your lazy asses into position! Watch your formations and firing sectors! Concentrate your maximum firepower on the enemy’s point of attack!” Flint had ordered Beach Head to take charge of the section so that should an attack against CENTCOM HQ come, the Joes could respond with speed, lethality and mobility.

 

Flint, Lady Jaye and Law were still evaluating the manpower needs for a tighter security perimeter and extra patrols with the on-duty Air Force security officer, a lieutenant and flight leader with one of MacDill’s security forces squadrons, while the impromptu exercises were going on.

 

Beach Head didn’t need a bullhorn to call out over the broad area the squad was training on. His voice carried over all of the shouted commands and the revving of the diesel engines on the armored cars they were using to patrol the base. “Jesus Christ, you troops are sloppy fucking slack-jaws! Stop the fucking exercise and cease fire! Cease fire, dammit!”

 

The sounds of mock battle and blank weapons being fired died as Beach Head’s order reached all the reaction team Joes. They then turned in their positions to face him for the sergeant-major’s next command.

 

“Assemble on me and take a knee! Safe all weapons! Haul your fucking asses over here, yesterday!” The Joes quickly assembled in fire teams of four and circled up around Beach Head, while he turned and pounded his fist on one of the hatches belonging to the second M-706 of the section. “Rollbar, get your ass out here and join our powwow! Are you waiting for a fucking engraved invite?”

 

Rollbar climbed out of the gunner’s turret of the armored car and took a knee next to the vehicle so he could hear Beach Head. He looked around to study the faces of the fire team members. Dusty, who was a veteran desert specialist, led the first fire team which also included Spearhead, Vertigo and Airfoil. Crater, the Delta Force Sergeant 1st Class, led the second team, along with Muskrat, Pathfinder and Switchblade.

 

As the reaction squad’s leader, Beach Head would run the show from one of the pair of M-706 cars or take command on the ground, while Rollbar was in charge of the two, two-man crews of green shirts that drove the squad into battle and provided fire support from the armored cars’ machinegun turrets.

 

“This fucking exercise’s execution looked like Christmas with the Rockettes!” Beach Head yelled at the squad. “You all need to improve on your teamwork and communication! You also need to drill yourselves as a team to dismount quickly and in the order that allows you to best take control, by sectors, of the situation that presents itself to the squad!”

 

Beach Head began to pace about as he spoke, pointing around the mock battlefield. “Each of the teams has a grenadier, a SAW gunner and two assault rifles. Your SAW is the team’s anchor! Without the SAW, your heaviest firepower is lost! Choose your battle positions outside the vehicles so that everyone covers a direction or can create a kill zone by crossfire. The SAW gunner covers everyone else on the fire team, which means you bozos on the two-forty-nines shoot everything in every direction! Stay far enough away from these armored pigs so that if the enemy has an armor-defeating weapon, the exploding car doesn’t roast your ass besides! And Rollbar, make sure the armored car crews provide support to the fire teams in the same manner by choosing sectors to engage with their onboard machine guns! It looked like your vehicle was gonna mow down Crater’s team before they could hit the enemy!”

 

Looking about the group, Beach Head watched the men as they nodded their understanding. “Okay. We don’t have much time for screwing around any more. We’re running the fucking drill again through all of the phases. We’ll approach to contact, dismount, and counter-assault, and we’ll do it right this time! Got it?”

 

In one voice, the assembled members of Beach Head’s reaction squad yelled out, “YO, JOE!”

 

***

 

United States Military Mission, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

1800 hours, local time

 

General Tomahawk paced about a small office in the recently-expanded facilities of the US Military Mission-Dhahran, an administrative complex situated in the major Saudi port city that supported the logistics behind the American troop buildup in northwestern Saudi Arabia. The aggressive commander of the Joe Team held a satellite phone handset to his ear and his face looked like a frown had been welded onto it permanently.

 

Aside from the bustle of the port’s activities, a large number of Joes were assembling with materiel and vehicles alongside heli-borne rapid deployment soldiers of the 3rd Brigade, 101st Air Assault Division. The open areas around the USMM-D were crowded with marching troops, UH-60L ‘Blackhawk’ assault helicopters and G.I. Joe light vehicles.

 

“How many casualties did the advance team take after the air strike, Major Pulaski?” General Tomahawk asked over the secure satellite phone after listening to the Joes’ tank officer, code-named Steeler, recounting the events of the Cobra Rattler attack as he knew them.

 

“Most of us were secured and under cover, General,” Steeler replied. “But Crypto and Duke were with Scarlett somewhere in between the warehouse and barracks. They fired on a couple of the attacking planes from a prepared Saudi gun position, but Duke took some shrapnel in the leg, and Crypto got hit badly in the head. They’re at the base hospital, but the trauma docs still worried about the lieutenant suffering from long-term neurological damage.” Steeler paused to let the report sink into the General’s head.

 

Tomahawk slammed his fist disgustedly on the wall and leaned against it, pressing his forehead onto the hot window glass of the office he occupied and quickly reeling backward at the sensation of heat on his skin. “Son of a bitch; I can’t have my most experienced field commander and my S-2 analyst out of action! They’re going to be taking the assault force to its forward operating location and kicking off the offensive operations plan!” He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and watched the grounds outside the office building, where Joes, Army paratroops and Navy longshoremen milled about unloading crates of supplies, weapons and vehicle component assemblies.

 

Tomahawk returned the satellite phone to his ear and continued speaking with Steeler. “Okay, Steeler. Keep me informed about Duke and especially Crypto’s progress. You take charge of the detachment until our convoy gets out there to make the permanent rear HQ. Give my best to the clipped birds.” As Tomahawk hung up the phone, he called into the hallway. “Breaker and Sparks, front and center! Have my operations staff report to the conference room downstairs immediately! Assemble all the Joes on the parade ground! It’s time to bring the battle to Cobra’s doorstep!”

 

***

 

Outside the CENTCOM HQ complex, MacDill AFB

1900 hours, local time

 

Bloodpool and Firefly stood before twenty assembled thugs from the local chapter of the Drednoks organization. Firefly was addressing the clustered group of burly men dressed in leathers, torn clothes, and blue jeans while Bloodpool was readying their CLAW gliders for takeoff.

 

Firefly raised his voice above the rest in order to get them to shut up and listen. “Alright, you scumbags, you know the drill. Zarana and Scrap-Iron are going inside the compound as we speak. Their goal is infiltrating what we think is the target building where General Franks is meeting with the President. They will use a special transmitter to let us know when to begin the attack. You goons are the diversion. Attack the compound as far away from the buildings as possible, to draw off as many of the security patrols as you can. The Siegies we brought along are also infiltrating the compound to neutralize the alarm systems, so that when you tie up the duty patrols, no backup will come to their aid. Bloodpool and I will then guide the unmanned CLAW gliders in to deliver the bunker-buster bombs.”

 

One of the thugs raised his hand to get Firefly’s attention. “Firefly, sir, what do we do if the defenses overwhelm us and we get captured?”

 

Firefly charged through the crowd of Drednok bikers and grabbed the questioner by the collar of his shirt, shaking the large man. “If you get captured, you dumb fuck, you’re a bigger fool than we thought. If you even survive to be interrogated, I will personally deal with you.” The Cobra saboteur was visibly angry at the biker and drew his 10mm pistol, aiming the pistol at the bridge of the Drednok’s nose. “Maybe I should protect Cobra’s interests right now, as an example to the rest of you bums.”

 

The Drednok biker cringed and stammered an apology, pinning shut his eyes so he wouldn’t see Firefly end his life. The saboteur lowered his pistol and opted to cold-cock the biker with the butt of his pistol. When the burly man fell to the ground, Firefly addressed the rest of the group. “Are there any other stupid questions? No? Then get your shit together, grab your weapons, and get out to the fence line.” He paused, waiting for a response from the group of Drednoks. “Well? Get it done fucking yesterday!”

 

***

 

Meanwhile, in Building 5110

 

“Be quiet, Scrap-Iron,” Zarana hissed, removing the Army-issue camouflage block cap that hid her pink hair from prying eyes. Scrap-Iron was clanking about in the ventilation ductwork, looking for a place to plant the special radio beacon. He slowed the pace of his work and the sound level went down accordingly.

 

Zarana unbuttoned the tunic of her stolen battle dress uniform and let the tails of the top hang loose. She then propped her chest up and adjusted the thin leather straps of the shoulder holster hidden underneath. Looking around warily, she heard footsteps outside the utility room that she and Scrap-Iron occupied. “Scrap-Iron, hush up; there are guards coming by.”

 

Outside the utility room, two military policemen were walking their normal patrol route when they heard the clanging of Scrap-Iron’s work in the ventilation ducts. Without a word between them, the pair unslung their M-4A1 carbines and one of the men tested the doorknob.

 

“Hey, is anyone in there?” one of the guards called out as the knob turned and the door began to swing open. “Security check! All personnel stand to and get your identification cards out!”

 

“Keep working,” Zarana whispered to Scrap-Iron. “I’ll handle this.” She left her BDU shirt unbuttoned and unhooked her bra just as the guards entered the room.

 

One guard covered the other as they cautiously entered the utility room. They both stopped and gaped as soon as they caught sight of Zarana baring her bosoms and standing between them and the ventilation ducts. Zarana winked at the pair of guards and cooed in a sexy American accent, “Why, look what we have here. I have two strong men come to visit, and I’m starting to get undressed. I guess you boys want to come in and identify me?” Batting her eyelashes, Zarana crossed her arms in front of her chest, propping her breasts up as she studied the two MP’s.

 

The MP’s approached Zarana, beaming with smiles at the sight of her standing half-naked in front of them. “Come on, Joe. I think she’s right. We need to identify her in great detail.” The guards lowered the barrels of their weapons and continued to move closer.

 

Zarana raised a finger and beckoned the security guards to come right up to her. The guard named Joe turned to his partner and smiled. “Steve, I just love the perks of guard duty all of a sudden. So, how do we decide who goes first with this fine looking soldier?”

 

“Why don’t you boys let me do both of you at once?” Zarana cooed, reaching out to stroke Steve’s face. As she drew her fingers down the side of his cheek, she grabbed onto his neck and drove a knee into his groin.

 

Steve doubled over in pain while Zarana twister in place to fire off a snap kick in Joe’s direction. Caught entirely by surprise, Joe tried to raise his M-4 to parry the kick but took the impact directly in the chin. Joe’s head snapped back as he fell against a piece of HVAC machinery with a loud thud.

 

Although doubled over in pain for a moment, Steve regained his senses quickly and tried to get behind Zarana, in order to wrap his arms under hers and put her in a full nelson hold. Zarana felt Steve slip his arms around her body as he pressed his body against hers to restrain her with his sheer weight.

 

Writhing from side to side, Zarana strained to break Steve’s hold on her while Joe began to stir and get off the ground. She raised a knee and pounded the heel of her combat boot into Steve’s toes, distracting him long enough to thrust her elbow out. She was able to connect with Steve’s jaw with her elbow strike, and his grip slipped from her body.

 

By the time Zarana worked herself free from Steve, Joe had shakily returned to his feet and was reaching for an M-9 Beretta pistol in his belt holster. Zarana was faster on the draw than the groggy military policeman. She leveled the barrel of her Smith & Wesson silenced automatic right on the bridge of Joe’s nose as he leaned forward to secure her.

 

She didn’t hesitate to fire, shielding her face with her free hand as she put two subsonic rounds right through Joe’s head. The pistol barely made puffing sounds as the explosive rounds it fired blasted open large golf ball-sized holes in the back of Joe’s head and splattered blood and brain matter all over the nearby utility equipment.

 

Zarana swung her pistol around and caught Steve as he tried once more to get to his feet. She pressed the pistol against the MP’s temple and clucked her tongue, returning to her normal accent. “Tut-tut, airman. I really hate it when strange wankers grab my tits. It really pisses me off. So it’s time to pay your fee, bloody sod.”

 

Steve tried to raise his hands defensively, but Zarana had him cold. She fired into his temple and the bullet shattered his skull, burying itself all the way down into the cerebellum and destroying the parts of his brain that controlled breathing and heartbeat. Steve’s lifeless body shuddered in reactive spasms as it fell to the floor.

 

Scrap-Iron crawled out of the ventilation ducts and dropped to the ground below the access hatch, just a few feet from where Zarana had killed the security troops. “I’ve set the transmitter and it’s running... Oh, holy shit.” The missile specialist cringed when he saw the two dead military policemen and Zarana readjusting her brassiere. “They’re going to raise the alarm when these two don’t show up.”

 

“Not to worry, Scrap-Iron,” Zarana replied, pressing a button on a micro radio transmitter. “The Siegies will have the base-wide alarm system killed momentarily. Let’s go steal a Hummer and knock out the power generating station for good measure.”

 

The Cobra agents gathered themselves and adjusted their BDU’s back to regulation, locking the door to the utility room behind them as they moved for the closest exit.

 

***

 

CENTCOM HQ Security Control

1920 hours, local time

 

Lady Jaye sat in a small private office in the Security Control center, yawning as she watched a security monitor piping in pictures from cameras all over the compound. As she watched the images flashing by, she jiggled a small box that was wired to the security system and had a large red button on it.

 

As she tried to sip at her second cup of coffee, Jaye hoped the caffeine would recharge her before Law came by at 2000 to relieve her. She certainly didn’t want to look like she was sleeping on the job, considering the heavyweight brass the team was protecting inside the compound. The activity in and around building 5110 would be expected to continue on past normal working hours, because the meetings between the Joint Chiefs (conferencing in from the Pentagon), General Franks and the President were to hash out the entire war plan for Iraq, and it was no easy task.

 

Even with two weeks’ worth of allotted time, the sheer volume of information and recommendations and battle doctrine had to be sorted out by the staffers, both political and military, and then delivered to the assembled leaders for decisions to be made. Everything in the critical campaign planning stage took time, which was a luxury the US Army didn’t have as more and more soldiers and Marines flew overseas to mate up with the scores of armored vehicles, helicopters and other hardware being sent to the war effort.

 

To follow the rapid deployment troops of the 82nd Airborne and 101st Air Assault Divisions, General Franks and HQ CENTCOM (Forward) had established a corps command and added Marine Expeditionary Brigades from both the 1st and 3rd Marine Divisions.

 

Both of the Marine formations were due to have their remaining divisional manpower arrive in Kuwait City to face the Cobra-led Iraqi units down directly. The airborne troops stood a thin line between KKMC and Kuwait, supported by the available Royal Saudi Army and Saudi Arabian National Guard forces.

 

The New Jersey National Guardsmen from the 42nd “Rainbow” Division that had engaged the Cobra task forces first, were assigned critical replacement manpower and tanks. Once replenished, the 42nd Division provided a temporary heavy punch for the paratroopers screening the Iraqi frontier.

 

Two heavy formations based in the United States, the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division and 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment “Brave Rifles”, were already shipping over to boost the American corps strength to a total of four combat-ready divisions and four brigade-sized elements (3rd ACR, two Marine Brigades, and Task Force Kuwait). This impressive array of combat power, of course, was not including the covert operations forces being secretly assembled at Dhahran, or the G.I. Joe Team.

 

Lady Jaye finished reading the Stars and Stripes news briefs listing the American troop units being deployed to Saudi Arabia and folded the military newspaper neatly to put it away. Her security monitor flashed to a stretch of the perimeter fence, and she spotted a number of heavily armed Drednok bikers working to tear open the chain-link and barbed wire fencing outside the compound.

 

“Dammit!” Jaye cursed as she lifted the phone. “Security alert! Deploy all patrols to the northwest corner of the compound! Sound the all-base alarms!” As she hung up the phone and reached for her .357 Colt Python revolver she noticed that no alert klaxons sounded. Running out into the main communications room, the duty sergeant reported that the mobile patrols had responded, but the alarm junction boxes had been blown to bits, disabling the all-base alarms.

 

Lady Jaye ran back into the small guard office, slamming her fist on the small plunger button next to the video monitor. It was hard-wired to the nearby barracks where Beach Head’s reaction squad was relaxing, and sounded a loud doorbell in their rack room. “Come on, guys, wake up and stop those Drednoks...”

 

***

 

Reaction Squad Barracks

1922 hours

 

Beach Head was lightly napping in his rack as the other Joes in the reaction squad amused themselves with a distinctly simple card game called “bullshit”. A roar of laughter arose from the cluster of enlisted men as they tossed dollar bills back and forth to bet on its outcome.

 

“Will you fucking rawhides keep it down over there?” Beach Head yelled across the rack room. “I can barely hear the door buzzer from the Security Control room...” The ranger turned his head and tuned his ears in to hear the buzzer going off. “Son of a... Come on, Joes! We’ve got a perimeter alert! Grab gear and mount the fuck up! YO, JOE!”

 

Crater was the first to snap into action on Beach Head’s shouted warning, as he walked out of the barracks’ latrine. He grabbed the collars of the two closest Joes and yanked at them. “You heard the squad leader, Joes! Let’s get off our asses and into the fight! YO, JOE!”

 

The fire teams and vehicle crews rushed out of the small barracks and climbed into their pair of M-706 armored cars. The cars’ diesel engines fired up with a roar, and Beach Head popped open the commander’s hatch on his vehicle, grabbing the onboard tactical radio. “Beach Head to Security Control, requesting alert orders!”

 

“Lady Jaye here, Beach Head,” Jaye replied from the Security Control radio room. “Get to the northwest corner of the compound! There’s a Drednok attack inbound! Stop ‘em cold while I get Flint and Law to rally the green shirts at building fifty-one-ten!”

 

“You’ve got it, Lady Jaye,” Beach Head replied over his radio headset. He climbed down into the vehicle and kicked the driver’s seat, allowing the vehicle’s gunner to climb into the machinegun turret. “Get this pig into gear, Sweetheart!” he yelled to the driver as the fire team began strapping on their LBE gear in the troop compartment. “We’re out to kick some Drednok ass!” The M-706 drivers gunned the engines of their vehicles, and roared away towards the running battle with the Drednok bikers penetrating the CENTCOM HQ compound.

 


	11. Defending Tampa

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Eight

Defending Tampa

 

***

 

CENTCOM HQ, MacDill Air Force Base

18 July, 2002

1930 hours, local time

 

Flint burst into the Security Control office with Law and Tailwind closely on his heels. He threw open the door to the alert room to find Lady Jaye strapping on the rest of her gear.

 

“Jaye,” Flint said, puffing to catch his breath. “I was about to relieve you when we saw the reaction squad take off. What’s going on? Why didn’t the alarms go off if we’re on alert?”

 

Lady Jaye buckled on her LBE and snatched up an M-16 assault rifle as she replied, “Flint, there’s a Drednok attack on the northwest corner of the compound. The all-base alarm center must have been knocked out. We have to get the green shirts rallied and secure building fifty-one-ten right now! Beach Head is leading the troops out to repel the Drednoks!”

 

“Alright, let’s go then,” Flint said, wrapping an arm around Lady Jaye as she exited the room. As the other Joes turned to leave as well, Flint caught hold of Tailwind’s shoulder and she stopped.

 

“Sergeant Jamison,” Flint addressed the new Joe, looking into her introspective brown eyes. “You said earlier that you have a new experimental TUAV in that batch of equipment you brought from Huachuca. Can you mount a camera and mini-gun on it?”

 

Sergeant Jamison paused for a moment and her cheeks reddened as she was struck by Flint’s stunning, boyish good looks. She was afraid of becoming embarrassed if she stared into his eyes for too long. “Yes, sir, Flint; my experimental Tracer TUAV system carries a camera for the pilot’s view system and a payload bay for weapons or sensors. I have a General Electric ‘Mark Five’ mini-gun pod with an onboard capacity of five hundred rounds of 5.56mm. Will that suffice?”

 

Flint nodded at the buck sergeant. “It sure will. I want you to put the Tracer in the air and give Beach Head’s reaction squad and the fence patrols some air cover against the Drednoks. Do you need any help launching your UAV?” Flint’s eyes burned into Tailwind like he was trying to charm the tough, Southern girl.

 

“The Tracer is a one-man minimum system, Flint. I’ll get the drone armed and airborne myself if you need to handle the green shirts.” Tailwind smiled up at Flint to see if he was content to trust her with so important a task right away.

 

Flint kept his expression neutral, as he could feel Lady Jaye’s eyes burning a hole in the back of his head for the delay. “Get to it, Tailwind. Beach Head needs your air cover.”

 

Flint didn’t remove his hand from Tailwind’s shoulder as she nodded and ran off to her specially-outfitted Hummer with the UAV launching equipment and pilot’s control module. She felt his hand brush down her back and got a warm tingly feeling inside. But as she passed Lady Jaye, with her cold expression and hands on hips, Tailwind knew that she definitely shouldn’t respond to Flint’s subtle flirtations.

 

Flint caught up to Jaye and noticed her annoyed stance as she watched him giving Tailwind her orders. Jaye spoke to him in a cold, businesslike tone once he began moving. “Showing the recruits your bad habits now, Flint? I’d better not find out that you’re chasing every skirt that joins the team... especially when I’ve had to endure every little fight and argument that your jealous streak has brought on.”

 

Flint’s eyes became apologetic. “I’m sorry, Alison. But we really should discuss this after we know General Franks and the President are safe. Come on!” He tugged at Jaye’s BDU sleeve and broke into a run towards building 5110, with Jaye pivoting on her heel and running off behind him.

 

***

 

Cobra Military Mission, Baghdad, Iraq

19 July, 2002

0230 hours local time

 

Destro was having trouble sleeping and the Baroness had left for the border to take a firsthand survey of the Cobra forces positioned near the city of al-Basra. He first paced around his quarters, staring at the large red numbers of his digital alarm clock, and then tried to amuse himself with by flicking on the television in his guest quarters.

 

Iraqi television only had a few twenty-four hour channels, and almost all broadcasts for public consumption were in Arabic. However, al-Jazeera, an Arabic-language news channel much like CNN, had a station that broadcast its news reports dubbed in very broken English.

 

After a few moments of the annoying news reports, Destro finally decided that the best place to bore himself to sleep would be the communications room. All of the SIGINT feeds that Cobra could collect in Baghdad were received and recorded there, and some of those feeds included normal Western television and radio. He might even get lucky and be able to tune the communications gear into a cable re-broadcaster and catch something off the Playboy Channel to divert him from missing the Baroness.

 

The two Tele-Vipers on the graveyard shift were very surprised to have Destro pay them a visit at such a late hour, but the men remained respectful to their superior, mainly out of fear of getting on his bad side. They relinquished a tuner module from one of the unused SIGINT collection stations and piped the feed into the large main monitor for Destro to observe.

 

Even a casual observer could see that Destro was nervous about something and just wasn’t telling anyone about it. He watched the feeds for a while and then asked the duty signal officer if there were any status reports.

 

The sleepy Cobra Officer flipped through the last few hourly printouts and handed over a short “flash” transmission. The message, no longer than a telegram, had come over a portable burst scrambler from an orbiting Cobra SAT communications satellite.

 

The short message simply read: “Tampa attack will be underway at 1900 Lima; Zarana.”

 

Destro nodded his head after returning the flash message to the signals officer. He found that knowing Cobra’s covert attack on CENTCOM HQ eased his mind. He poured himself a glass of cognac and handed around glasses to the duty signal staff before heading back to his room for another attempt at slumber.

 

***

 

Northwest corner of CENTCOM compound

1935 hours

 

Three patrols of Air Force security policemen had arrived to try to interdict the Drednok attack through the compound’s fence line by the time Beach Head’s squad was within sight of the engagement, but the patrols were hanging back and taking a beating from the Drednoks’ mix of light and heavy machine guns and LAW-80 anti-armor rockets. Of the patrols’ six M-706 armored cars, four were already smoldering from direct hits, and burned bodies of dead security troops were slumped over the top and side hatches where they were incinerated while trying to escape the ‘death boxes’.

 

Beach Head grabbed the microphone for a radio tuned to the security forces’ frequency. “This is the Joe reaction squad! Sound the all-base alarms! We need to be reinforced pronto! Drednok elements have penetrated the outer fence line perimeters and are pushing back the patrols! There’s going to be a lot of dead troopers out here real fucking soon!”

 

The senior Joe Ranger could hear a lot of commotion coming over the radio channel from Security Control, as the duty personnel tried to get more Security Force teams mounted up and sent to the perimeter fence.

 

“Dammit!” Beach Head cursed as he threw the microphone down with a clatter and looked across the troop compartment at Crater’s fire team. “It looks like we’re all there is for the moment. We’ve got to take the initiative, and we’re going to do it with a frontal assault right now!”

 

Beach Head switched to the inter-vehicle channel for his squad and advised Rollbar to tell the second fire team his plan. “Follow my lead, Rollbar! We’re going to blow right through the line the Drednoks are forming and dismount behind them! Open fire as soon as they’re in turret gun range!”

 

After passing his orders for the other half-squad on over the radio, Beach Head kicked the back of the armored car driver’s seat and the green shirt behind the wheel slammed his foot on the gas pedal, making the M-706 barrel right for the Drednok line at full speed. Rollbar’s armored car charged forward just to the right of Beach Head’s vehicle.

 

***

 

“Push those Air Force wimps back!” yelled the Drednok gang leader while he sprayed the dismounted positions with his AKSU-74 sub-machinegun. His men were arrayed in five-man teams and moved independently to keep the defenders guessing. It was the flexibility to move that allowed the Drednoks to gain the advantage over the four wrecked armored cars and nail them with their LAW rockets. He knew his men could keep the patrols and any reinforcements pinned down if the enemy remained cautious.

 

Long streams of red and green tracers and explosions from rocket-propelled PG-7V grenades lit the battle space up in an eerie orange glow as the Drednoks and security men traded weapons fire between their positions.

 

“Let’s move, you Drednoks! Press the advantage! Knock out those security teams!” The leader waved his AKSU-74 in the air to get his men’s attention, and then pumped a fist up and down indicating he wanted them to charge.

 

Two new pairs of headlights appeared around a bend, and the diesel engines associated with the lights roared like they were being pushed beyond their full power.

 

The leader ran to one of his close assault teams and shook the LAW gunner. “Target the approaching vehicles! Shoot ‘em now!”

 

***

 

The green shirt driving Beach Head’s M-706 reported in a slightly worried voice, “Sergeant Major, I see several positions occupied by the Drednoks, and they look like they have weapons powerful enough to knock out these sweat wagons!”

 

Beach Head made a few split second decisions as he listened to the driver’s report. “We would already be in TOW or Dragon range, and they could’ve hit us well before we could shoot back with the MG turret. They must have LAW rockets, which still outrange our machine guns, but only by a little.” The ranger grabbed the inter-vehicle radio. “Rollbar, begin evasive maneuvers! Charge the Drednok line and dismount your fire team after we penetrate it! Begin close assault! YO, JOE!”

 

Rollbar peered out from a Plexiglas vision block and saw a bright flash of cordite come from one of the Drednok positions. “I see back blast! Anti-armor rocket inbound! Swerve away from Beach Head’s vehicle now!”

 

Beach Head spotted the same flash as the Drednok rocket crewman launched off two shots from an M-202 four-shot disposable rocket launcher. “Swerve left and evade! Gunner, suppress that position! Crater, get your fire team to the rear clamshell doors and stand by to dismount!”

 

***

 

Right after the Drednok with the M-202 fired off his brace of rockets, the thugs saw the armored cars swerve aside in different directions and had to duck for cover as the turrets spat fire and smoke in reply.

 

“Dammit to hell! I missed ‘em!” swore the rocket gunner, as he aimed the launcher once more at the charging vehicles.

 

The Drednok gang leader knew exactly what the two armored cars and their embarked troops had in mind. “They’re charging our positions! Concentrate firepower and pull in all the pickets!”

 

***

 

“The Drednoks are clearing their positions! It looks like they want to paint big red bull’s eyes on us!” Beach Head shouted back to Crater and his fire team, as well as over the radio to Rollbar and Dusty’s team. “We’re about a hundred fifty meters from the Drednok line! Prepare to dismount and attack in close quarters!”

 

The clang and rattle of Drednok bullets bouncing off the armored car hulls became more like the sound of rattling a hundred pennies around in a Coke can over and over. “Keep charging them! We’re gonna cut right through those fucking Drednoks!”

 

Rollbar shouted over the radio after spotting another flash of bright light, “Rocket launch; close aboard! Button the cars up!” At nearly point-blank range, the rocket gunner fired his remaining two rockets right at Rollbar’s M-706. The rockets exploded on the sloped frontal armor of the vehicle and broke its front suspension, causing the struts and shocks holding the two front wheels together to shatter.

 

Still moving forward with the momentum of its speed and being propelled by the rear drive wheels, the M-706’s front end plowed into the ground and threw dirt everywhere as it rolled right into the Drednok firing position and crushed the five members of the occupying fire team. The Drednok leader had ducked away a fraction of a second soon enough to be out of the way when the careening vehicle plowed the position’s berm over.

 

As soon as the vehicle lurched to a stop, Rollbar shook his head groggily, feeling a sore spot where his head bumped into a part of the front vision blocks. He grabbed his M-16A2 and hauled the green shirts manning the driver’s and gunner’s stations back into the troop compartment. They were both miraculously uninjured. “Is everyone okay?”

 

Dusty nodded from the rear clamshell doors. “We’re copasetic, Rollbar. Come on, Joes, dismount and take the fight to the Drednoks!” He unlatched the heavy steel doors and shoved them outward, as the Joes clambered across the troop compartment to leap from the hatches.

 

The seven Joes leaped from the stricken M-706 into a real battle zone. Their crash broke the Drednok lines and it seemed like they were surrounded by enemy thugs charging at them from every direction. Dusty immediately took charge of the group while he loaded a 40mm grenade into his M-203 grenade launcher. “Okay, Joes! You know the drill! Take a sector and cut down every Drednok that fills your sights! Fire! Fire at will!”

 

Airfoil and Vertigo charged out of the M-706 as a pair. Vertigo leveled the fire team’s M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon and cut loose at a Drednok fire team trying to occupy a position near the dismounted Joes. Airfoil added the fire of his M-16A2 in the same direction. Between them, they made the Drednoks keep their heads down long enough for the rest of the Joes to take up their firing sectors.

 

***

 

Beach Head’s armored car plowed right over a strongpoint that had been occupied by three startled Drednoks. As the M-706 smashed through the earthen berm the thugs hid behind, the driver spun the vehicle and it squealed to a stop. Crater spotted one of the displaced Drednoks raising another M-202 rocket launcher. “Everybody out! Danger close! Come on, Beach Head, a rocket crew has a bead on us!”

 

Switchblade cranked free the latches on the armored car’s rear doors, and the Joes piled out using the vehicle for cover. Muskrat dropped right into a prone firing position and shot the M-202 rocket gunner dead with his M-4 carbine. As Muskrat kept the vehicle out of danger, the other six Joes from the armored car formed a tight perimeter and began firing at the closest Drednok fire teams.

 

***

 

Elsewhere on the compound:

 

Air Force and Army personnel scurried about after reports of the Drednok attack and the destruction of the all-base alarm junctions had spread around the rank and file. With many of the cooks, maintenance workers and support personnel out looking for a safe place to hunker down, the security units had a more daunting task to see to their safety while searching for any infiltrators that may have been prowling through the compound.

 

It had become more difficult to just stop people at random for their ID’s or to tie up security squads to do group ID checks, so the Air Force security commander simply ordered all essential facilities to be sealed. However, his orders came too late.

 

Zarana drove the “borrowed” M-1114 armored Hummer, taking a roundabout way across the compound. Unexpectedly, she had spotted the two Siegies in their disguises just after they had detonated the alarm boxes and picked them up. The quartet had found their way to the complex’s main power generating and distribution plant, where only a token guard of six airmen had been posted as a security precaution.

 

“There it is, the main power facility,” Zarana said with a smile. “Even though most of the important areas will have a backup generator, if we kill this equipment, it will add to the overall confusion and may even disrupt the radars over at MacDill enough to get the CLAWS in completely undetected.”

 

“Let me just shoot a missile into it,” Scrap-Iron insisted, pulling out a launcher grip-stock and a single-use MILAN anti-armor missile tube. “This baby ought to put some righteous fireworks into the show!”

 

“Do it,” Zarana said. “Set your launcher up on the roof cupola of the Hummer and we’ll provide cover fire from the windows. You think you can shoot while on the move?” Scrap-Iron gave her a thumbs-up while he extended a steel support post that could fit into the Hummer’s weapons mount.

 

Zarana goosed the accelerator of the Hummer, and its engine roared loudly while the vehicle picked up speed. Zarana, Jane and Fred dropped their Plexiglas windows and pointed weapons outside to provide cover for Scrap-Iron.

 

The six security policemen didn’t seem alarmed at first when they saw the armored Hummer in Army markings plowing down the road at them. They even mistook the vehicle as a security reaction team when they saw that a missile launcher was mounted on the roof. When Zarana and the Siegies opened fire on their guard shack, the security troopers were caught unaware. Five were killed in the first volley of automatic weapons fire, while the sixth tried to duck for cover and reached for a radio set.

 

The Hummer covered the distance to the generator plant very quickly and Scrap-Iron fired off his MILAN missile. The weapon streaked right into the main generator and distribution plant on a cone of orange tail fire and detonated deep within the machinery. The large generator exploded straight up into a tall column of fire, smoke and debris. Subsequent smaller explosions engulfed the guard shack in a fiery conflagration, trapping the last air policeman inside and burning his body to a crisp.

 

“It’s done,” Scrap-Iron reported with an evil grin. “Let’s call Firefly and Bloodpool to initiate the second phase of the operation.”

 

***

 

Building Fifty-one-ten

 

Flint stopped Lady Jaye as the lights in the building flickered for several seconds and then went completely out. Small emergency floodlights snapped on right away in the hallways, and from a distance the rumble of the emergency generator starting sent a slight vibration through the walls.

 

Skidding to a stop on the waxy floor, Flint grabbed his head and mashed his beret down to keep it from slipping off. “Holy shit, Lady Jaye. The Drednoks have penetrated farther than I’d hoped and knocked out main power. Get the green shirts to cover all of the building’s exits and put Law in charge of the squads. Hopefully General Franks and the President are already in the building’s emergency bunker in the basement.”

 

Lady Jaye ran deeper into the building with Law to gather the green shirts, while Flint went back outside and found Tailwind setting up a long rail system from the back of her high-mobility trailer. A dark shape sat on the trailer, pointed at the angled rail, and a menacing gun barrel protruded from the top of the flying machine.

 

Tailwind saw Flint running out of the building and pointed to an open door of the Hummer. “Flint, I’m ready for launch. If you want to watch the fun, hop into the back seat. Just leave the control terminal free for me!”

 

Flint climbed into the passenger seat of the Hummer, right behind where the driver normally sat. He noticed that the cargo carrier variant had the right front seat removed and a control console inserted in its place. The hum of a tactical quiet generator fitted to the cargo bed was the only sound in the vehicle.

 

Tailwind climbed into the operator’s position, which was originally the right rear passenger seat. She flicked a few switches and three video displays came to life. Two of them looked like a very simple airplane cockpit, with altimeter, compass and other gauges digitally reproduced. The top display showed a darkened landscape with familiar contours, and the side of building fifty-one-ten.

 

“Engaging RATO bottle, Flint,” Tailwind reported quickly. “Cover your ears!” She pressed a button on her remote console and a loud blast came from behind the Hummer. The RATO, or rocket-assisted takeoff, bottle propelled the small Tracer TUAV up off the launching rail while the small gas-electric pusher engine spun the vehicle’s propeller. Soon, the small bird-like vehicle climbed into the air and jettisoned the expended RATO device.

 

Tailwind pressed some more buttons and the display of the outside world changed to a blue-green hue and details on the ground were much easier to distinguish. “I’ve put on the starlight filter to make observing the ground easier, Flint; taking Tracer up to three hundred feet and setting a course northwest.” The TUAV responded to Tailwind’s controls and banked easily in the intended direction.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, at the compound’s northwest corner

 

“They’re coming out of the woodwork all over the place, Dusty,” Rollbar exclaimed as he fired a few bursts into the trees to keep the Drednoks honest. “But at least they’re focusing on us and not the Air Force troops!”

 

“I read you loud and clear, Rollbar!” Dusty replied. He turned to the Joes in his fire team. “Okay men, it’s time to take the initiative back! Fix bayonets and prepare to hit the Drednok fire teams! Let’s move!”

 

Vertigo checked over his SAW while Dusty, Airfoil and Spearhead attached bayonets to their assault rifles. Dusty pointed to a group of charging Drednoks. “Let’s go, team! YO, JOE! Charge!”

 

While Rollbar and the two green shirts defended the armored car, Dusty’s fire team stood up and charged a group of Drednoks that were running over to re-take their position. Quickly, the groups met to the point where the Drednoks were afraid to shoot for fear of hitting each other. The Joes waded into the dozen or so Drednoks, swinging their assault rifles like pugil sticks. Vertigo hung back with the light machine gun to keep any Drednoks from surprising the rest of the squad.

 

***

 

Crater watched Dusty’s fire team disappear into the tree line near where Rollbar’s armored car took its nose dive and then turned to get the attention of his own fire team. “Okay, Joes, it’s time to beat these Drednok bastards back! Fix bayonets!”

 

Beach Head clapped Crater on the shoulder, “Go get the fucking punks, Crater! Kick their asses right off the base!”

 

Crater snapped his M-9 bayonet onto the barrel of his assault rifle and got to his feet. Pathfinder and Muskrat followed suit, while Switchblade slung the team’s M-249 SAW over his shoulder. Crater pointed to a cluster of Drednoks working their way towards the squad position and yelled, “Charge! Go, go, go!”

 

***

 

Three Drednoks tried to pile onto Airfoil at once, swinging their rifle butts to pummel him to the ground. Airfoil angrily lashed out with the bayonet end of his M-16A2, taking the thugs by surprise. He plunged the bayonet into one of them, who screamed out in pain. Airfoil turned to face the other Drednoks while pressing his boot against the chest of the man he bayoneted. Pushing the thug away from his rifle, he extracted the bayonet and thrust the butt of his rifle into the jaw of another thug within range.

 

As the Drednok rubbed his jaw and tried to recover, the third thug lunged at Airfoil, who was trying to turn and level his rifle. As the thug swung the butt of his AK-74 rifle at Airfoil, he was stuck with the bayonet right in the gut and Airfoil drew the sharp knife up to his solar plexus before yanking it out. The thug doubled over in great pain, bleeding out and trying to gather his intestines up from the ground.

 

Airfoil leveled his rifle at the thug whose face he originally smashed his rifle butt into. The Drednok was angry for what Airfoil did to his comrades and looked like he was ready to take revenge. The men leveled their weapons at each other as grenade explosions and tracer fire still went back and forth.

 

“You’re smarter than the other two thugs, Drednok,” Airfoil said with a sneer. “Your weapon was actually ready before you decided to point it at me.”

 

“I’m going to kill you, fucking G.I. Joe, for sticking my buddies!” the Drednok cursed at Airfoil, getting his AK-74 ready to fire. Both men stood their ground, ready to shoot each other down if the other even twitched. Just as the Drednok was about to pull the trigger, his head exploded and his lifeless body went down.

 

Airfoil turned to see Vertigo leaning against a tree and cradling his smoking SAW. “Thanks for the cover, Vertigo buddy,” Airfoil said. “Watch your ass out here, there’s more Drednoks than we can shake a stick at!”

 

Vertigo nodded at his fellow paratrooper. “I’ll cover your ass, Airfoil. You take care of the Drednoks! YO, JOE!”

 

Dusty and Spearhead were in a small cut inside the tree line standing back to back, firing at three separate Drednok positions as they sought cover for themselves. “Hey, Spearhead,” Dusty said. “You reckon our provisional buddies are gonna come help us kick ass sometime tonight?”

 

Spearhead nodded as he fired a salvo of 5.56mm rounds which took down a large, burly Drednok thug. “They sure will. They’re just a few trees away.”

 

***

 

A pair of Drednoks had lost their AK-74s but decided not to wait around to look for them when they saw Beach Head and his green shirts trying to lay down cover fire for Crater’s team as it moved into the woods to dig out other Drednok positions. They ran up to the far side of the M-706 the Joes had for cover and climbed over it, leaping right into Beach Head’s improvised firing position.

 

Beach Head whirled at the sounds of their boots thudding onto the soil next to him. “You fucking Drednoks just made the biggest mistake in your lives,” he said with an evil growl. He didn’t wait for them to start out with fisticuffs.

 

Lashing out with the butt of his Colt .45 in one hand and a cocked fist in the other, Beach Head struck one Drednok square in the jaw, sending him reeling out of the shallow firing pit. The thug tripped on an exposed root as he fell, cracking his head open on a large rock when he finally hit the ground. The Drednok stopped moving once his head bounced off the rock and landed again.

 

The second Drednok was able to land a punch to the back of Beach Head’s neck, but the ranger held his ground firmly. He twisted around, swinging the butt of his automatic pistol until it connected with the thug’s left temple. Grabbing a fistful of the Drednok’s shirt fabric, Beach Head shoved the thug into the steel armor of the M-706 and repeatedly pounded his head against the armor plating until a spray of red blood discolored the lizard camouflage paint job of the vehicle and the Drednok fell limp.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, just outside the compound

 

Firefly and Bloodpool navigated their CLAW gliders toward CENTCOM HQ, leading the flight of four unmanned gliders and their deadly bunker buster ordnance towards the beacon signal Scrap-Iron had set in building 5110. Bloodpool peered out over the complex with his night vision goggles and noticed another silhouette was in the air with them.

 

Keying his radio, Bloodpool said, “Firefly, do you see that other flying object with your night goggles? The Joes may have put up a small glider or weapons system of their own!”

 

“We’ll worry about that if it tries to engage our glide bombers, Bloodpool. We need to release in five minutes!”

 

***

 

Tailwind turned to Flint and pointed at a small radar scope on her control console. “Flint, look over here for a second. There are six small flying bogies close to the Tracer. I’ll bet you dollars to donuts they’re not friendlies! My signal processor is picking up four remote control signals among the bogies in the same wavelengths that we use for flying UAV units. They could be remote controlled glide bombs!”

 

Flint leaped out of the Hummer and raised an image intensifier skyward to try and pick out the enemy formation. He was able to make out the shapes of CLAW gliders, but not whether they were manned or unmanned. “Forget providing air cover to the security teams for now, Tailwind! We need to protect the President first! Engage those gliders!”

 

Tailwind called out from her control station, “The Tracer can’t maneuver like a fighter, Flint; I can’t go up against manned CLAW gliders! They’ll out turn and outfight my little drone!”

 

Flint raised his assault rifle and began firing into the air. “Then try to shoot down the unmanned ones so they don’t hit the building!” Flint turned to building 5110 and saw Lady Jaye driving an armored Hummer around with a fifty caliber machine gun fitted to its roof. He leaped onto the roof of the Hummer and loaded the heavy machine gun, pointing it skyward and shooting at the distant CLAW formation. “I’ll worry about the manned gliders!”

 

***

 

“That shape is turning towards us, Firefly, and we’re taking fire from a vehicle on the ground right by the target! How soon before we can release the glide bombers and start fighting back?”

 

“Soon, Bloodpool, a few more seconds on this course,” Firefly insisted. “Lock and load your onboard weapons.”

 

***

 

Tailwind banked her Tracer TUAV up and around the formation of Cobra CLAW gliders, arming the rotary-barrel Mark Five mini-gun mounted on its back. Soon, the broad-winged shapes of the jet-powered gliders filled the Tracer’s camera view on her operator’s display.

 

Flint rocked and rolled with the heavy Ma-Deuce on top of the Armored Hummer, laying down fire to bracket ahead of the CLAW formation. His fire pattern was done in an attempt to force the manned gliders to take evasive action and betray themselves to the ground so Tailwind could kill the drones before the manned units could put the Tracer out of action.

 

“Tracer UAV is engaging the Cobra CLAWS, Flint!” Tailwind reported, as she walked a stream of 5.56mm mini-gun rounds into three of the six CLAW gliders. The high-explosive tracer ammo punched through the light aluminum skins of the gliders and into the fuel bladders that fed the jets.

 

The first glider Tailwind hit with the Tracer’s gun lit up and exploded in mid-air, detonating the ordnance on board well outside of any area where it could be a danger to the ground. The combination of the first explosion and more bullets detonated the second glider. The stream of bullets petered out with the third CLAW, which happened to be carrying Bloodpool. Mercifully for him, the bullets only clipped off one of the wing extensions and made controlling his CLAW shaky.

 

***

 

“Dammit, Firefly, I’ve been hit by that flying thing! I have to release control now and find a soft spot to land outside the compound!”

 

“Bloodpool, you stupid ass,” Firefly responded over the radio. “Keep the gliders on target! I’m slaving all of the surviving gliders to you while I turn back to identify and intercept that flying object of yours!” Firefly pressed a couple of buttons on a remote beacon that was duct-taped to the frame of his CLAW and then banked around at full flying speed.

 

***

 

Flint peered through his image intensifiers as he saw one CLAW peel out of formation and loop back towards the Tracer. He tried to clip it with the Ma-Deuce but the group was still at the very edge of the weapon’s range. “Tailwind, you had better jink that pilot-less bird of yours! One of the manned CLAWS is coming after you!”

 

Lady Jaye had climbed into Tailwind’s Hummer to help her with a signal discriminator and watched as the UAV pilot started taking evasive maneuvers while trying to keep a bead on the CLAWS.

 

After a moment, Jaye shouted out to Flint, “I’ve got the signal discriminator working! There’s a beacon broadcasting out of building fifty-one-ten which is on the same frequency as the CLAW drones. We don’t have the time to go hunting for the planted device, but Tailwind’s control station can overpower the homing signal and steer the glide bombers away from the base!”

 

Tailwind nodded, firing another burst of rounds from the Tracer at the gliders. “I’ll have to set the Tracer to automatic recovery to do it, so it has to be a split-second changeover, or else my million-dollar TUAV is going to become wood splinters, microchips and broken ceramic panels!”

 

“Just get it done, Sergeant!” Flint yelled from the Ma-Deuce as the formation of CLAWS approached dangerously close.

 

***

 

At the northwest perimeter fence

 

“Shit! I caught one!” Switchblade yelled out in pain, as a stray Drednok bullet ripped through his BDU’s and became lodged in his right arm. He dropped painfully to one knee and leaned up against a large tree trunk for cover, trying to prop his M-249 on a gnarled branch at chest level so that he could keep firing.

 

As hot tracers peppered the ground between the Joes in their cover positions, Pathfinder sprinted from his chosen spot and braved the Drednok weapons fire to reach his stricken comrade. Although a number of the 5.45mm rounds came really close to hitting the experienced Joe reconnaissance man, he was able to dive behind Switchblade’s tree and landed with a thud.

 

In one fluid motion, Pathfinder had raised himself to his feet and dug out a pressure dressing from among his pieces of equipment. While Switchblade kept up his volume of fire, even wounding three Drednoks who exposed themselves from cover, Pathfinder swiftly cleaned the bloody entry wound with an anti-bacterial formula and pressed the dressing hard against the bullet hole. After stemming the flow of blood in the wound, Pathfinder wrapped the dressing’s attached mesh strips around Switchblade’s arm before tying them off tightly.

 

“Ouch!” Switchblade yelped when Pathfinder cinched the dressing strips around his arm. “Don’t tie that so tight, Pathfinder! I need to carry the SAW and reload it with that arm!”

 

“This one’s probably going to keep you out of Iraq, Switchblade,” Pathfinder remarked about the injury as he folded a large cloth into a sling. “You’ll need that bullet removed and R&R time.”

 

“No fucking way, Pathfinder,” Switchblade swore as he covered Crater while the Delta operator advanced at a dead run into a determined Drednok firing position and slashed away with his bayonet, killing the two thugs hidden in the shallow pit. “I’m following Crater into Hell and back before I let a little thing like an arm injury take me out of the fight!”

 

Switchblade wrenched his arm out of Pathfinder’s grip and handed him the SAW. Bending over to Pathfinder’s M-16 and picking it up, he slipped the foregrip of the assault rifle into the sling where his injured arm could steady it. He rounded the tree trunk and charged after Crater, firing at another group of Drednoks who popped out of a cluster of bushes. “Come on, Muskrat and Pathfinder! Let’s mop these sons a’ bitches up!”

 

Muskrat charged out of his covering position and paired up with Pathfinder while Switchblade and Crater tucked themselves into the cleared Drednok foxhole to cover them with suppressive fire. In the corner of his eye, Pathfinder spotted a pair of Drednoks exposing themselves from cover and cut them down with the SAW.

 

Somehow, a thug had gotten behind the pair and tried to lunge at Pathfinder’s neck with a saw-toothed knife drawn. Muskrat saw the flash of steel in the moonlight and whirled around, slashing with his fixed bayonet and impaling the Drednok right through the biker’s neck. Muskrat purposefully drew the assault rifle forward as he turned, which made the razor-sharp blade slice through the biker’s jugular vein and tear out his Adam’s apple.

 

The two Joes found cover a few feet from Crater and Switchblade’s spot and Pathfinder breathed a sigh of fatigue as he caught his breath. “Phew, thanks Muskrat. Hot damn, this is one Hell of a close quarters fight!”

 

***

 

Firefly banked his glider around until he felt the small machine gun mounted on the vehicle’s spine was lined up on the sleek black body of the Tracer. He keyed his radio and yelled, “Bloodpool! Release the two glide bombers now and bank hard right to draw off the UAV! I’m gonna shoot this bandit down before we go home!”

 

Bloodpool pressed the release button on his remote module, which shut down the portable controller and set the unmanned CLAWS to follow Scrap-Iron’s beacon. He seethed at being used as a decoy by Firefly, but when he heard the buzz of the Tracer’s mini-gun spinning up to fire, he decided there wasn’t time to bullshit around.

 

“Firefly, clear my six!” Bloodpool shouted back into the radio as he throttled up the jets on his glider and pointed the flying machine away from MacDill towards the empty woods beyond the perimeter.

 

The Tracer rattled off another few bursts of 5.56mm at the glide bombers under Tailwind’s control rather than the pilot taking Bloodpool’s bait and Firefly tried firing the gun on his CLAW at the stealthy drone. The stream of small-caliber machine gun bullets flew high and to the left as a sudden gust of wind shook the CLAW and threw Firefly’s aim off. “I hate these fucking winds!” Firefly swore as he angled the glider down for more speed, intending to close on the Tracer.

 

***

 

Lady Jaye watched the signal discriminator’s readout change as Bloodpool released the gliders to the homing beacon. “Tailwind, the glide bombers are on the building signal! We have to do it now!”

 

Tailwind was working hard to keep her UAV alive while Lady Jaye was yelling about the homing signal. She began to feel annoyed that Jaye was trying to boss her around because Flint tried to flirt with her. “Put a damn sock in it, Lady Jaye,” she said with a growl. “I’m keeping my million-dollar flying machine alive right now and trying to dogfight with these Cobra bastards! I know what needs to be done!”

 

Thumbing a switch on her console, Tailwind switched to a fiber-optic pinhole camera that could see behind the Tracer and spotted Firefly lining up for a very-close-range shot with his glider’s gun. Within a moment, a thought filled her mind and she smiled evilly. “Stand by on the signal discriminator, Lady Jaye, and give me the numbers. I’m switching the controller station now!” Tailwind moved her thumb to a large red self-recovery/abort button and pressed it, right before dancing her hands on the control panel to adjust the transmission frequency of her UAV command station.

 

“One six-five point five megahertz, Tailwind,” Jaye read from the signal discriminator’s display. “Fly those gliders out of here!”

 

Tailwind watched her panels light up as they registered the drone gliders under her control. “I’ve got the suckers! I’m steering a reverse course to dump them into no-man’s land!”

 

***

 

When Tailwind pressed the red abort button, her console sent a signal to the Tracer which cut its propeller and main electrical system. It also deployed a small parachute which would safely bring the craft to earth.

 

Just as Firefly lined up with his CLAW for another shot, the aluminum cover plate over the parachute pack broke away from the Tracer and smashed into the saboteur’s face, knocking him off balance and causing him to veer dangerously close to some communications antennas. Cursing wildly while he regained control of the glider, Firefly decided to retreat and banked off to follow Bloodpool.

 

As Firefly gained some altitude and flew away from MacDill, he didn’t notice that the glide bombers had been turned around and aimed for an open area safely off base and away from nearby Tampa neighborhoods.

 

***

 

“Yee-hah!” Tailwind shouted with glee while her control station kept the Cobra gliders running away from the base. She would eventually cut their engines and kill the control so that the glide bombers would fall into a nearby, uninhabited lake and detonate.

 

Flint climbed down from the armored Hummer and looked into the back of Tailwind’s UAV control vehicle with a satisfied smile. “Great job, you two. Let’s mount up and try to find Beach Head’s squad, shall we?”

 

***

 

Zarana slowed the M-1114 Hummer to a near crawl while the group spied the M-706 armored car blocking the gate road leading to MacDill from the CENTCOM complex. “Shit. There goes our way out. I doubt our ID’s would stand up to heavy scrutiny, especially since maintenance people don’t drive around in MP trucks with missile launchers on top.”

 

Scrap-Iron pulled out the spare MILAN missile that he didn’t use on the generator plant and climbed up into the gunner’s cupola. “I’ll kill that armored pig. You crash this thing through the wooden guard shack to the left and we’re out of here!” He took twenty seconds to load the MILAN tube while the Siegies pointed their AR-180 rifles out the passenger windows.

 

Scrap-Iron sighted in on the M-706 just as the Air Force security policemen at the gate got the clue something was wrong. They fired their M-16 rifles at the armored Hummer as it accelerated towards their post, and the rounds bounced harmlessly off the composite Kevlar and Plexiglas front windows.

 

The Cobra missile specialist fired off the MILAN and it streaked into the armored car right between the front and rear wheels, rending the steel armor into jagged shards and making the troop compartment explode into fiery bits. Zarana swerved around the burning armored car and smashed through the flimsy wood paneling and drywall guard shack, finally roaring down the roadway towards a separate perimeter breach they had prepared for their escape.

 

Bewildered, the security policemen kept on shooting until the Hummer sped out of range, and then tried to figure out how they would explain the incident to their CO.

 

***

 

Weak and tired from repeated gunplay and close-quarters hand to hand combat, Beach Head was still shouting to Rollbar and the four green shirts to keep up the fight. Some of the men, Beach Head included, had sustained some cuts and scrapes from deliberate Drednok charges that they repulsed each time with knives and fists.

 

Rollbar nursed a deep knife gash in his chest while he sprayed fire at the tree line with an Uzi sub-machinegun. He kept prodding his vehicle crew to watch themselves and they fought hard against the heavier Drednok weapons to stay alive.

 

“Hey, Rollbar, do you hear the gunfire letting up?” Beach Head called over to the light vehicle driver.

 

“Sure do, Beach Head; do you think it’s over?”

 

All of a sudden, heavy gunfire from a new direction caught the Joes’ attention and Beach Head aimed his Colt .45 in the sector the sounds originated from. Beams of flashlights rocked back and forth as they were played along the ground and a voice shouted out, “G.I. Joes! This is security police patrol Charlie-Four! The intruders are on the run! We’re coming in to relieve you!”

 

Rollbar spotted the first couple of security men coming out of cover in Air Force camouflage BDU’s and called for a cease-fire. “Hot shit, boys. You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

 

***

 

Dusty’s fire team was still engaged with two full Drednok fire teams, ten men in all, who were trying to surround them and cut them off from being supported by the other Joes. Spearhead had caught his foot on a heavy tree root and fallen, twisting his ankle enough to keep him immobile.

 

Vertigo and Airfoil quickly came to their buddies’ aid, circling up with Dusty to protect Spearhead until they drove the Drednoks away enough to move him to safety. As Airfoil cut loose with one of his last clips of rifle ammo, he leaned down to Spearhead where the latter was clutching his ankle and trying to tie a stick around it for an improvised splint. “Think you can move if I help you along?”

 

Spearhead shook his head. “I’m not so sure, Airfoil.”

 

Dusty glanced at the two Joes, studying Spearhead’s pained expression. “Guys, we make our stand here if Spearhead can’t move. Just keep your heads down and cover your sectors. It sounds like the firing’s dying down. We’ve either killed most of them, or they’ve called a retreat...”

 

***

 

Crater slung his rifle as he charged at the back of a laughing Drednok who thought he had machine gunned the entire Joe fire team while the men leaped for cover behind a copse of trees. Connecting with the taller Drednok’s head with his clenched fist, he drew his Ka-Bar combat knife with his other hand and took a fistful of the thug’s long hair, pulling the man up to his knees from where he fell.

 

Crater pressed the sharpened blade of the knife into the Drednok’s throat while he hissed, “This is what you get for trying to kill my buddies, you fucking scum!” Without pause, the Delta commando drew the knife across the thug’s throat and kicked him to the dirt to die.

 

Switchblade staggered into view from the trees the team ducked into for cover, still cradling his assault rifle with the sling holding his wounded arm. Seconds later, Muskrat came out to fire in the direction of a pair of escaping Drednoks and Pathfinder added to the gunfire with the SAW.

 

Switchblade lowered the smoking barrel of his M-16 and smiled at his teammates. “Shit, guys, I think they’re finished. And none of them got past us! YO, JOE!”


	12. Blood Guts and Speeches

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Nine

Blood, Guts and Speeches

 

***

 

King Khalid Military City, Saudi Arabia

19 July, 2002; 0400 hours, local time

(18 July, 2000 hours in Atlanta and Washington DC)

 

A deep, Darth Vader-like voice marked the beginning of America’s evening news hour. “Live via satellites around the world, this is CNN.”

 

The face of a middle-aged announcer appeared on the television, sitting in front of CNN Atlanta’s generic background. “Thank you for tuning into the Evening Edition News on Cable News Network. My name is Terrence James here in Atlanta. Bringing us tonight’s top story is Amy Smith from our International Desk. Amy is reporting on location in Manama, Bahrain, with the latest news surrounding the Iraq crisis.”

 

The CNN news reporter named Amy Smith filled the screens at CNN Atlanta after the introduction faded. She was only in her early twenties, yet was a veteran newshound covering the Middle East. She was tall, blue-eyed and tanned, with shoulder-length blonde hair, and looks to turn any man’s head. She wore a white blouse that was halfway unbuttoned and short khaki shorts that revealed her long shapely legs.

 

“Good evening, America. This is Amy Smith reporting from CNN’s mobile broadcast unit in Bahrain. We have just come out of a U.S. Central Command press briefing concerning the current status of the military buildup.”

 

Amy used her free hand to brush some wisps of hair out of her face and then held her wireless microphone back to her lips. “The spokesman here at Central Command’s Headquarters has confirmed that the activation of the reserve components of the CENTCOM Forward Headquarters and Third Army Corps Headquarters is completed. Among the armed forces’ major units manning the Saudi border defenses are the 1st and 3rd Marine Divisions, 82nd Airborne Division, 101st Air Assault Division and the New York National Guard’s 42nd Mechanized Division. The 3rd Mechanized Division and 1st Cavalry Division have been reported to be mounting up Stateside to join the major units in Saudi Arabia.”

 

“A number of separate brigades, a brigade of Apache attack helicopters, and an Armored Cavalry Regiment have rounded out the force, along with three Air Force combat wings and two Carrier Battle Groups. The Joint Chiefs of Staff are also considering pulling all American forces with the 10th Mountain Division that are assigned to NATO IFOR and SFOR in the Bosnia area and re-deploying the 173rd Airborne Brigade from Vicenza, Italy for Mid-east duty.”

 

Amy paused as she reached for a packet of typed pages and brushed a hand through her hair to shake out some blowing sand. “In a separate press conference televised from London, the British Prime Minister is deploying two armored divisions, several Air Force and Navy units and their elite 3rd Royal Marine Commando Brigade. The Prime Minister has guaranteed the President his full support and solidarity in the crisis and has expressed his full intention to protect the nations threatened by the Iraqi aggression on the Arabian Peninsula.”

 

CNN Atlanta had replaced Amy’s picture with some graphics released by the Department of Defense, showing the numbers of American personnel deployed overseas. Her voice still dominated the audio feed. “As of this week, over forty thousand reserve and national guard personnel have been mobilized for homeland defense duties, not including the almost one hundred fifty thousand regular personnel converging on the Mid-east region.”

 

Amy’s face returned to the newscast, holding up a video tape. “CNN and hundreds of other news outlets around the world have been anonymously given copies of a videotaped announcement, which has supposedly spurred the American and British governments into more determined action in Saudi Arabia, including bills to reinstate the draft before Congress and the President signing off on invoking the War Powers Act, which grants the Commander-in-Chief full executive powers to fight a war. These powers have not been invoked for over fifty years, not since World War Two. We will be playing the tape after a short break.”

 

The correspondent’s face faded out, to be replaced by live footage from a CNN cameraman taping a long column of M-1A2 Abrams tanks rolling for the front lines. After a few spots for such CNN programs as Wolf Blitzer Tonight and Headline News, the evening announcer returned to the screen to introduce Amy Smith and the mysterious videotape. “Welcome back. This is CNN and we’ve got a previously videotaped Amy Smith reporting from Bahrain.

 

Amy Smith’s face returned to the screen. “Thanks, Atlanta. Now we continue with the news over here in the Middle East. I have in my hand a video tape that has been released to all of the news outlets. A note was delivered with each copy that said the videos had already been handed over to world governments twenty-four hours ago.” Amy handed the video over to a CNN producer, who queued up the contents.

 

When Amy’s face faded, it was replaced by Cobra Commander, wearing his normal royal blue shroud. His dark eyes pierced through the slits cut into his hood.

 

“Attention, nations of the world!” Cobra Commander began. “Hear my words! Cobra and the nation of Iraq, under its glorious leader, Saddam Hussein, have entered into a pact of mutual understanding and we have established a military alliance.”

 

“The forces of Cobra and all of its terror cells around the world stand poised to strike at your capitals, your cities and your governments. The Iraqi Army stands prepared to completely assume control of the Arabian Peninsula, where almost ninety percent of the globe’s petroleum exports come from. We have begun a campaign to place a stranglehold on the world’s oil supply and all of your nations are the ransom! Submit to the Cobra regime, and your precious oil will continue to flow! Resist us, like the Americans, Saudis and British forces arrayed on the southern Iraqi border, and we will not hesitate to employ any and all means to bend you to our wills! Those means shall include weapons of mass destruction!”

 

“So, people of the world, call upon your governments to be realistic and submit to the new world order! Do it for your own survival! COOO-BRAAAAA!

 

***

 

“Blast it!” Duke almost yelled, tossing a hospital slipper at the visage of Cobra Commander on the television. “I was afraid that Old Fucking Chrome Dome was somehow involved in these unprovoked attacks! It was only a matter of time when Saddam would have gotten his balls back and tried another invasion, but Cobra has stepped up the process by re-arming the Iraqi military!”

 

Duke felt a warm hand press against his shoulder, trying to calm him down. He looked to his side and saw that Scarlett had never gone to her quarters to sleep. She had been keeping vigil over her man and Crypto, who had to be on pain medications for his head injury. “Duke, please calm down. We’re going in to fight them; you know that’s why we came. Hawk will be here with the rest of the troops real soon.”

 

“Not soon enough, Scarlett!” Duke replied in a frustrated tone. “We should have kicked Cobra completely off the face of the earth, whatever it took. Cobra Commander’s constant escape artistry and restraining our armed forces in nineteen ninety-one - rather than taking Baghdad and ending it all - is what brought us back into this with Saddam Insane! We need to end the enemy threat permanently!”

 

Scarlett looked over at Crypto, who was stirring at the sound of Duke’s tirade. “Believe me, Duke, we all agree with you. But we can’t stoop down to their level and become cold blooded killers. That’s not the right thing to do.” She leaned down and gave Duke a long kiss on the lips. “Shh. Please try to rest. You’re going to want to be at one hundred percent to take this fight to Baghdad, right?”

 

Duke looked deeply into Scarlett’s eyes and her disarming smile. “You’re right. Why don’t you go get some rack time yourself? Crypto will keep me company until you get back.”

 

“Forget it, Duke,” Scarlett said, patting his hand. “Crypto is in no condition to protect the television from flying slippers. I’m standing guard duty over you personally for the rest of tonight.”

 

***

 

Somewhere on the Tap-Line Road, Saudi Arabia

0405 hours, local time

 

The convoy of mostly U.S. Army M-977 HEMTT trucks and fully loaded HET tractor-trailers rolled along the Tap-Line Road with only their minimal night driving lights on. Escorted by a platoon of Saudi military police in Hummers, the string of vehicles transporting the G.I. Joe team and its equipment northwest from Dhahran stretched for almost a mile and a half.

 

Riding in the back of an M-4 armored command vehicle, General Tomahawk had already watched the contents of Cobra Commander’s video directly from a satellite conference call with the President and General Franks in Tampa. He was pleased that Flint’s team had successfully routed an attempt on the President’s life, and had stressed that the Joes were ready to hit Baghdad with full force, so long as Central Command could hold the Arabian Peninsula.

 

General Franks had committed to both the President and Tomahawk that the young men and women of the tri-service Central Command would hold to the last combatant, if that’s what it took to let the Joe team tear the alliance up from the inside.

 

Tomahawk sat beside a large map board, looking over the border area and glancing at a small portable TV that was carrying CNN’s broadcast of the Cobra Commander video. He fumed at the thought of being held over a barrel by Cobra, but that was going to change in five hours when the convoy was expected to reach KKMC and Duke’s advance team.

 

While reports of Cobra-led raids across the Iraqi frontier came almost daily, the combined armed forces arrayed against them had been able to hold their own. However, four Iraqi corps, amounting to almost 200,000 soldiers, had taken up position around the town of al-Basra and the Kuwaiti border.

 

***

 

Tampa, Florida

2200 hours, local time

 

“Dammit!” Scrap-Iron cursed, pounding his fist on the picnic table the Cobra agents sat around. “After all that fucking around we did at MacDill, we have nothing to show for it! And with the security of the meeting compromised, General Franks is returning to Bahrain and the President is going back to Washington DC early! So we no longer have a shot at either of them!”

 

Firefly nodded, rolling a hand grenade back and forth. “Agreed. General Franks’ transport back to the Middle East is most likely going to have an entire squadron of fighters escorting it, not to mention the detachment of G.I. Joes that cropped up to protect him. And the President’s security is unbreakable if just the six of us were to try and take a crack at him.”

 

Zarana brushed her nails against the fabric of her shirt. “I’m worried about the commander’s reaction to our failure. I suspect we should meet up with Zartan and the Drednoks in San Francisco and let the chips fall where they may over here. The handful of bikers that survived the raid can take the heat for the mission’s failure.”

 

Bloodpool and the Siegies nodded among themselves as they turned a suspicious ear towards the sounds of the highway rest area where they had stopped. The group was still too close to Tampa to be safe, since a mixed force of Florida state troopers and MacDill security police had fanned out to raid Drednok safe houses and weapons caches and to throw a perimeter up around the city to search for the bikers.

 

***

 

CENTCOM HQ, MacDill AFB

2200 hours, local time

 

“Flint, you and your troops did an outstanding job reacting to the Cobra attack,” General Franks said with a satisfied smile. “I want to decorate the lot of you for your heroics.”

 

“I know the troops would appreciate that, General,” Flint replied. “But because of our classified status, I don’t think we’ll ever see the medals in our lifetimes, unless our combat records while with the Joes get de-classified.”

 

Flint and General Franks walked around the open area at the northwest corner of the headquarters complex where the Drednoks had attacked the base. Grave registration troops were still working with Air Force rescue medics to carefully extract the dead security men from the burnt-out armored cars, while other medics tended to the injured troops and Joes.

 

Beach Head jogged up to where Flint and General Franks stood. He stopped and came to attention, snapping a salute at the officers. “Beach Head reporting, sirs. Drednok attack successfully repulsed.”

 

Flint returned Beach Head’s salute and nodded. “Good job, Sergeant Major. You look a little banged up, why not have the medics look you over while we regroup the team? General Franks has ordered a departure for Bahrain in the morning.”

 

“I’m fine, Flint,” Beach Head replied, standing at ease and poking at some knife cuts that had gone through the fabric of his battle dress and cut into his flesh. “My squad comes first. I’ll make sure they’re patched up and on the plane in time.”

 

Law, Lady Jaye, and Tailwind had been milling about the armored Hummer that they drove to the perimeter breach with, when they saw medics helping Spearhead, Rollbar and Switchblade out of the woods. The medics had patched up their injuries at the positions where they were relieved. The three Joes ran to aid their comrades and to lend some support while the rest of Beach Head’s squad came exhaustedly out of the tree line one at a time.

 

Lady Jaye arrived where the medics and injured Joes had paused first. She looked over the men and their torn and bloody BDU’s with a concerned expression. She reached for Spearhead’s free arm and threw it over her shoulder. “Come on, you medics put these guys in our Hummer. I’m taking them to the base hospital!” Law and Tailwind joined up with the other wounded, supporting them as the group went to the utility vehicles and ambulances waiting nearby.

 

Flint and General Franks had moved back to the perimeter road when the rest of Beach Head’s squad and the injured had come out of the woods. Beach Head was already running between the Hummer ambulances, prodding the drivers to back off the road towards his men. “Get these fucking meat wagons moving you medics! I need to move my men to the hospital pronto! Move it! Move it! Move it!”

 

Tailwind had chosen to help Switchblade and she wrapped her arm around his waist, putting his good arm over her shoulder. She gazed at him with her deep brown eyes and smiled. “How’s that arm doing, you hero?”

 

Switchblade cringed when the bullet shifted in the muscle where it had lodged. “Stings like a mother, Sarge. Did I miss anything while out here playing with the seedy locals?”

 

“Not a whole lot,” Tailwind replied with a wink. “I shot down a couple of Cobra glide bombers and kept two more from bringing a whole world of hurt on the President.”

 

“Well, shucks, sister, this calls for a round of beers. I hear that’s the tradition to celebrate a combat pilot’s first shoot down.” Switchblade didn’t realize it at first, but Tailwind’s gaze and smile had him enraptured. “... Or maybe sharing your company at the dining hall before we go wheels-up for Saudi Arabia?”

 

“Whoa there, Specialist,” Tailwind replied, appreciative of Switchblade’s attempt to ask her out. “You gained some extra weight on this mission. Let’s have the docs take care of removing that steel-jacketed lead in your arm so that you can be whole again when you share chow with me, okay?”

 

Switchblade was shocked for a moment that Sergeant Jamison was actually flirting back. He was also beginning to get groggy from a painkiller ampoule that one of the medics had administered. “You mean it? You’ll let me take you out for chow?”

 

Tailwind patted Switchblade’s back with the hand she was supporting him with. “If you promise to get fixed up, then I’ll be waiting for that date at the dining hall.” The two Joes reached a Hummer ambulance, and the female sergeant turned Switchblade over to the ambulance attendant, who helped the paratrooper aboard, sat him next to Rollbar, and shut the vehicle’s door behind them. Moments later, the ambulance departed for the base hospital, its siren wailing through the night.

 

“Hey, Joes!” Beach Head yelled as a wrecker took the place of his squad’s surviving M-706 in trying to haul the wrecked armored car back to the road. “We still have a pilot-less airplane to recover! I don’t see any bandages on your asses, so stop whacking off and hat up in the seven-oh-six and Hummer! Let’s go! Fucking move it, you rawhides!”

 

***

 

King Khalid Military City

0900 hours local time

 

Right on schedule, the convoy carrying the lion’s share of the Joe Team pulled up to the expanded security perimeter at King Khalid Military City. The primary roadways had been blocked several kilometers out by heavily armored vehicles and tanks, and the checkpoints were protected by platoons of Saudi soldiers dug into slit trenches and FASCAM minefields. Tracked Saudi SAM systems like Crotale NG were also deployed as far out as possible to protect the command and control facilities from future Cobra air attacks.

 

Flights of Royal Saudi Air Force F-15S and Tornado ADV fighters had now been supplemented with veteran combat pilots from the American and British air forces flying F-15C’s, F-16C’s, F/A-18E’s and British Tornado F.3 fighters. The nearby Hafr-al-Batin air base also hosted a number of super-secret visitors from the Joe Team.

 

Ace, Slip Stream and Ghost Rider arrived at the American dispersal area at Hafr-al-Batin with the first three of six F-22A Lightning II stealthy fighters, seconded to the Joes from Langley AFB’s 1st Fighter Wing. The sleek gray fighters drew much admiration and curiosity from the regular Air Force crews of the 4th Fighter Wing that were basing their F-15E Strike Eagles at the Saudi airfield.

 

Two X-35 Joint Strike Fighters, still under development, were shipped over to the U.S.S. Flagg for delivery to Hafr-al-Batin when the carrier arrived in the Persian Gulf as part of the American naval task force. The Flagg also served as Tomahawk’s backup command post and mobile staging base, fresh out of Newport News Shipyards in Virginia with a newly-retrofit well deck for launching WHALE and LCAC hovercraft and the latest in carrier operations systems. Sky-Striker and Maverick were already familiarizing themselves with the aircraft in anticipation of strike sorties against the enemy front lines or deep raids into Baghdad.

 

Wild Bill, Lift-Ticket, Windmill and Updraft were detached with specialized maintenance and weapons green shirts to Hafr-al-Batin to play nursemaid for the Joe Team’s handful of special operations MH-60P Night Hawk helicopters, which were assigned alongside XH-1 Dragonfly/Locust and AH-74 Desert Apache attack choppers and the old reliable Tomahawk medium-lift twin-rotor. A pair of refurbished CH-53C cargo helicopters had also been delivered to the air base for heavier cargo work.

 

***

 

Tomahawk’s M-4 command vehicle had moved to the head of the column when it approached the Saudi army checkpoint and the entire convoy came to a stop when Heavy Metal halted the boxy, tracked carrier based on the M-2/M-3 Bradley series of infantry fighting vehicles.

 

Steeler had been conversing with the Saudi 2nd Lieutenant in charge of the checkpoint and producing the clearances for the convoy when General Tomahawk dismounted from the M-4. He waved at an M-6 Bradley “Linebacker” air defense vehicle that had been following the M-4, motioning it forward. “Spotlight, get that ack-ack track up here and keep watch for Cobra! Spread the word to the security teams all the way back! We’re going to be halted for a while!”

 

Steeler ran up to the general and stood at attention. Snapping a salute, he said, “Good morning, General Tomahawk. It’s good to see everyone’s here on time.”

 

Tomahawk returned Steeler’s salute and the major stood at ease. “Good to see you Steeler. Is there any news about Duke and Crypto?”

 

Steeler nodded, as the two officers strode towards the Saudi checkpoint. “Yes, sir. Duke’s shrapnel injury turned out to be minor. A few stitches and some bandages have set him straight. They’re going to release him back to duty today.”

 

Tomahawk gazed at Steeler’s expressions, wondering what he was trying to hold back. “What about Crypto, Major? What about his head wounds?”

 

“They patched him up, and physically he’s fine,” Major Pulaski replied, shaking his head. “But the routine psychological re-evaluation had the Army shrink concerned. He’s nearly fit for duty now and Duke wanted him released but the shrink tried to override his authority.”

 

“Do you see any cause for concern, Steeler?” Tomahawk asked matter-of-factly.

 

“No, sir,” the major replied. “Crypto’s still a hard charger, sir. He even changed his mind about going into Baghdad. Maybe the shrink’s worried about that PTSD thing where he’s only affected by prolonged periods of non-combat.”

 

Tomahawk nodded. “Well, you Joes have to live and die with him across the line, so I’ll trust your judgment and Duke’s. I’ll see to it that as soon as the wounds are copasetic, Crypto gets to make his decision about going into Indian country.”

 

The Saudi lieutenant passed Steeler the orders jacket for the convoy and saluted both officers as he nodded approval for the vehicles to move on into KKMC. Steeler and Tomahawk climbed into the M-4 command vehicle while Breaker radioed down the line for the convoy to start back up. Soon the mismatched array of military vehicles was plodding forward past the checkpoint towards the area set aside for the Joes’ command post.

 

***

 

Cobra Military Mission, Baghdad

0910 hours, local time

 

Cobra Commander slammed his fist on a table over which was spread a variety of surveillance photos taken from orbiting Cobra satellites. “God damn it, Destro! Why didn’t you tell me General Tomahawk was in Saudi Arabia?”

 

Destro shook his head and glanced at Baroness, who offered a supportive smile. “These images are about ten minutes old, the time it took for the satellite we had tasked for surveillance over King Khalid Military City to shoot the photos for the controllers and the controllers to bring them here. Tomahawk must have gone to great lengths to conceal the movement of the G.I. Joe team into the country. God only knows what his plan is.”

 

Cobra Commander was fuming as he stared at the digitally-enhanced satellite photo showing a very grainy view of Tomahawk’s face looking up into the sky with Steeler talking next to him. He unrolled a tactical map of the border area near KKMC and called out, “Where did Wild Weasel’s Rattler flight put in? Can we send them back to KKMC? I want a raid on that convoy and General Tomahawk immediately!”

 

Destro shook his head. “Wild Weasel’s Rattlers were unable to effectively penetrate the KKMC defenses. He lost two pilots, and the diversionary force of Iraqi MiG-29 fighters had their heads handed to them by about a dozen Saudi and American interceptors. KKMC is now too well defended with both ground and air protection to withstand a raid from one of our mobile task groups. They would be unable to penetrate far enough without an Iraqi corps behind them.”

 

Baroness approached the unrolled map and tapped the border line. “Commander, a raid would be most unwise, especially if we have to expose our hand and force an Iraqi corps against their forces when the whole army isn’t yet in position. However, I have received word that Zarana’s raid on CENTCOM HQ in Tampa has also failed. We have choice talent traveling with her. Might I suggest that we collect some agents and Drednoks together for a covert raid against the base? We might be able to find out more about the Joes’ operational plan here that way. I shall personally lead the raid, if you desire.”

 

Cobra Commander turned to Baroness with an evil hiss. “NO! Getting them here just for one raid will take too long! I want them in the United States for now! Get the Ash Shabakah forward operating airfield on the secure radio and order all available aircraft to cross the border and home in on that convoy! They must cut through the KKMC defenses; have our planes and available pilots overwhelm them! Do it now! COBRA!”

 

Destro and Baroness excused themselves to issue the appropriate strike orders for Ash Shabakah and agreed between themselves that the Commander’s order was quite irrational.

 

***

 

Iraqi Air Force forward operating location (FOL)

Ash Shabakah, Iraq

0930 hours, local time

 

Wild Weasel was giving his fueled and loaded Rattler a morning walk-around and preflight inspection when the portable alarm horn sounded at the control tower shack. He gathered the surviving pilots and aerial gunners in his flight and rushed them to the alert shack to pick up their flight orders.

 

Upon arriving, the Rattler flight crews met up with a score of Strato-Viper and Aero-Viper pilots all crushing against the operations desk in the Alert Shack. The orders had come down from Baghdad for a full sector scramble to launch an Alpha Strike against the Joe convoy, which was working its way west from the KKMC Tap-Line Road checkpoint.

 

The intelligence was already a half hour late, although the air intelligence people at Ash Shabakah suspected the convoy was still between the checkpoint and the base proper and could be intercepted while on the move, if the crews worked fast. Fortunately, the bare base was always operating under a state of alert, so ground crews wasted no time in keeping the visiting planes fueled and fully armed for action.

 

The crews had worked feverishly to be ready when the strike was posted, and the “package” of fighters and attack planes launched five minutes after all of the pilots sprinted to their aircraft. Wild Weasel led his two-ship Rattler strike fighter section, followed by a flight of twelve Iraqi MiG-29 air superiority fighters with Cobra Strato-Vipers at the controls and eight Mirage F-1 light attack fighters with Aero-Viper pilots.

 

Twelve Cobra Firebat fighters with long-range drop tanks and only cannon armament took off a few minutes behind the Alpha Strike element in order to fly a combat air patrol over the border and try to draw off Saudi and American interceptors. The Aero-Vipers aboard the Firebats were also ordered to sacrifice themselves if necessary to protect the Alpha Strike as it returned from KKMC.

 

Wild Weasel finished programming the GPS and inertial navigation systems with the flight path to KKMC after take off, as his air crewmen went through the checklists for the strike, sounding off with counts of what stores (weapons, drop tanks, ammo and countermeasures) were on board. After their lists were updated, they ran a variety of software checks for the Rattler air-to-ground attack system, which linked inputs from the electronics and targeting sensors aboard the sophisticated strike plane to the actual guidance packages and fuses for the weapons. “Alpha Leader, calling all strike package aircraft; set your course south-east for KKMC. Approximate distance to target is two hundred twenty statute miles. Arm all weapons; we’ll cross the border in ten minutes!”

 

***

 

Quarterback 307

U.S. Air Force E-3A Sentry AWACS

0940 hours local time

 

The Sentry airborne early warning aircraft flew a racetrack-shaped route over northern Saudi Arabia, well behind the demarcation between Iraqi and Saudi airspace. Its all-too-critical job was using its massive radar system to track the movements of all aircraft within its coverage area, and to control Allied fighter intercepts against potential enemy planes.

 

The Sentry had many hours’ endurance in the air and carried triply-redundant systems, including its ‘human’ systems. A total of three flight and monitoring crews comprised the wartime strength of Quarterback 307 while it defended the Saudi skies.

 

Most of the air controllers on board the converted Boeing 707 airliner were enlisted airmen of eighteen to twenty years of age serving on their first or second forward deployments. All of the shift supervisors, senior enlisted men in the Air Force, were veteran controllers from Desert Storm and knew the territory and battle procedures from memory.

 

One of the newer controllers was watching an open area of Iraqi airspace when his radar screen suddenly filled with red blips, signifying unidentified aircraft. The tracking data fed to the radar screen from the onboard computers was too jammed together for the controller to get a good look at any specific blip without quickly adjusting his equipment and data link terminal. “Supervisor, I have a Red Flock heading southeast from Sector Six in two groups. My rough count is thirty-plus targets on the same heading and flying at an altitude of six to seven thousand feet AGL. Considering their projected vector, it looks like a possible Alpha Strike on KKMC or the sector six border defense units!”

 

The controller’s supervisor, a veteran Technical Sergeant named Mike Billings, rolled his chair over to the radar screen and studied the blips before rolling back to his own workstation. “Good job, Airman Hastings. They’re too high to be a run on the border, and none of the low-altitude MADGE units have raised the alarm. It looks like we have a real aerial push this time around.”

 

He flipped on an intercom system which carried his voice to all of the shift’s air controllers and an Air Force Major who acted as the duty commander over the radar crew. “Attention, all stations! We have a Red Flock originating in Iraqi airspace and crossing Sector Six for KKMC! Red Alert procedures! Snap to it, controllers!”

 

Tech Sergeant Billings punched up some additional data on a small computer terminal unique to his workstation that was labeled “Joint Ops Data Link”. He was collecting the information he needed on standing and alert air patrols and the units’ call signs so that his controllers could take over interceptor flights and put them on target. He would also have to report the sector air defense status to the Major and alert KKMC and Hafr-al-Batin Air Base to step up their air defense postures again.

 

Much of the alerting was now accomplished through digital electronics and high-speed data links. However, the Air Force never trusted any system entirely when on a war footing, so the standard operating procedure was to also perform a quick code-based verbal alert, so that voice authentication eliminated the risk of false enemy transmissions.

 

Billings selected a secure frequency and contacted the KKMC Air Defense Squadron’s S-3 (Operations) radio center and the Hafr-al-Batin Base Defense coordination center simultaneously. “Attention, KKMC and Hafr-al-Batin. Air Defense Alert Level One! This is AWACS call-sign Quarterback Three-oh-seven. Stand by to authenticate.”

 

The Tech Sergeant withdrew a code book from a safe at his workstation which contained the sector authentication codes based on the local procedure. Namely, specific codes were used depending on the time of day the signal was being sent.

 

“Quarterback Three-oh-seven, this is KKMC Air Defense Operations. Authenticate Charlie-Tango.”

 

Billings found the entry in the code book and read back the required response. “Quarterback Three-oh-seven responds Alpha-Alpha. This is a red alert! Thirty-plus Iraqi inbounds from your northwest now crossing the border over Sector Six at Angels six point five! Man all air defenses and stand by for target updates via data link! Initiate ground-based force protection procedures while we begin routing interceptors!”

 

KKMC AD-Operations replied quickly, while the ground station’s troops began to sound the base alarms. “Thanks for the heads-up, Quarterback Three-oh-seven. Give ‘em hell! KKMC over and out!”

 

***

 

“What the hell is that sound?” Tomahawk asked Steeler as the wail of klaxons and alarms echoed across the featureless desert. The general climbed up into the commander’s hatch of his M-4 command vehicle to get a better idea of what he was listening to.

 

“Alarms, General,” Steeler replied, locking and loading his Mini-Uzi. “They sound them when there’s an air defense alert!” The tank officer turned to Breaker and Sparks, who were monitoring convoy and general radio traffic. “Breaker, raise the convoy security teams! Tell them to look out for enemy aircraft! KKMC has sounded a base defense alert!”

 

“I just heard a report from within KKMC, Steeler,” Breaker responded, popping a large bubblegum bubble that he was lazily blowing. “All convoy elements, this is Tango Six. Force Protection alert. Keep your eyes peeled for enemy flyboys!”

 

Sparks had turned on a speaker set to the convoy security team channel and cranked up the volume. Several Joes with air defense weapons training were reporting in from their M-6 Linebacker vehicles spread out among the column.

 

“This is Spotlight with Grand Slam. Our data link just pulled a report from an Air Force AWACS bird. We’ve got over thirty Iraqi planes on the way in. Look sharp, everyone! Keep those Stingers hot and ready to shoot!”

 

“Back-blast and Salvo are checking in, Tango Six. The SHORAD radar scopes are clear right now. We’re only reading the data link updates.”

 

Sparks turned to Tomahawk and reported, “General, I just checked the line with our boys at Hafr-al-Batin. They’re fueled and armed and itching for a fight!”

 

General Tomahawk grabbed a microphone at Sparks’ radio. “Joes, this is Tomahawk! Scramble and join the air defense over the base! Take those Cobras and Iraqis out! YO, JOE!”

 

***

 

Hafr-al-Batin Air Base

 

Three gray, sleek shapes joined the line of Saudi F-15S and American F-15C interceptors rushing to get off the ground at Hafr-al-Batin as they tried to reinforce the standing air defense patrols. The G.I. Joe F-22A Raptors looked like a trio of speedy birds of prey among a flock of slow seagulls.

 

The Raptors were soon followed by the pair of X-35 Joint Strike Fighters, similarly-shaped aircraft with stealthy features. Where the F-22A’s wore intakes on either side of the cockpit, the X-35 fed air to its engines through a single gaping intake shaped like a hungry mouth that couldn’t swallow enough of whatever was in front of it.

 

Ace was at the head of the line of Joe fighter pilots rolling for the main runway. The Air Force Major was all business when he called the tower for clearance to take off. “This is Ace, call sign Snake Buster Lead. I have a flight of five mean-ass fighters requesting clearance to launch and intercept the enemy.”

 

An American voice greeted the Joe pilots, owned by a ground movement officer from one of the Air Force squadrons at the base. “Hafr-al-Batin Flight Operations calling Snake Buster Lead; you are cleared to taxi from your aircraft shelters to runway three-five via taxiways Alfa then Charlie. Call Departure Control on one-one-five-point-five upon reaching the short hold line. Happy hunting, you shadow-jockeys!”

 

Sky-Striker smiled under his oxygen mask as he followed Slipstream’s F-22A down the runway. “Shadow-jockeys, huh? I kind of like the sound of that. What do the rest of you guys say?”

 

Ghost Rider agreed with Sky-Striker while he followed Ace’s lead and glanced every so often over his shoulder to make sure Slipstream wasn’t running into his tails. “Yes, it does have a nice ring to it, and is quite appropriate to boot. Let’s just make sure we protect our buddies on the ground so we can live up to the moniker, shall we?”

 

Maverick, bringing up the tail end of the section, voiced his agreement with Ghost Rider. “Yes sir, I like riding a shadow into battle, but all this high-tech, high dollar hardware ain’t no good if we don’t accomplish our mission.”

 

Ace chimed in on the impromptu conversation over the inter-plane frequency. “Pipe down, pilots, we have a job to do. We’re at the hold short line. Departure is already giving us take off clearance. Let’s tighten it up and go cover our convoy’s ass!”

 

As a tight formation, all five Joe fighters roared off the runway on fiery pillars of smoke and gases. Once off the ground, they were being vectored against the attack formations by the controllers aboard Quarterback 307.

 

***

 

“Push the throttles to the stops and don’t hang around for the damn Saudi and American interceptors!” Wild Weasel prodded over the inter-plane channel of his strike group. “Let the Firebats and MiG-29’s deal with them! We need to scream in low and fast to pepper the Tap-Line Road! Drop down to a thousand feet and kick those fucking afterburners!”

 

The nine other attack planes, loaded down with cluster munition dispensers and 57mm air-to-ground unguided rockets, dove in pairs to follow Wild Weasel’s Rattler, speeding up as they passed right over the heads of Saudi and American army units between the border and the KKMC security envelope. At a thousand feet, they sent scores of troopers scurrying for cover and drew a lot of ground fire, but the myriad salvos of 5.56mm and cal-.50 did little to break the attack formation up.

 

As the attack force looped around the north side of the KKMC outer perimeter, Wild Weasel spied a long line of vehicles kicking up dust as they tried to run for the base at the maximum convoy speed. “This is Wild Weasel! Strike hard, Cobras! Kill the G. I. Joes in that convoy below! COBRA!”

 

***

 

“Holy shit, General, I have them!” Spotlight cursed accidentally over the open radio channel. “There are a total of ten blips on the SHORAD radar and coming right for us! Spread the convoy out and get them off the road where you can! Have the drivers and passengers open up with everything they have!”

 

“Roughneck to General Tomahawk, I’ve engaged a pair of Rattlers in the lead!” Roughneck, a new Joe who was manning an Avenger air defense vehicle based on the Hummer, interrupted the radio traffic as he fired off a pair of Stinger missiles at the lead pair of attack planes and missed. “I’ve got a pair of Rattlers on a strafing run and looks like Iraqi Mirages carrying rocket loads lined up behind! Clear the road! Scatter!”

 

Spotlight’s M-6 Linebacker opened up with its turret-mounted 25mm gun as Wild Weasel’s Rattlers streaked past overhead. Bullets from the Rattlers’ 30mm Vulcan cannons kicked up dirt and sand all along the road while the convoy drivers swerved their vehicles evasively, many going off the road and halting in the soft sandy shoulder or in small drainage ditches beside the paved strip. Joes popped out of truck roof hatches all down the convoy line and fired cal-.50 machine guns at the planes from their ring mounts.

 

Roadblock dove out the passenger door of the M-977 HEMTT he rode in as the heavy truck skidded to a stop in the sandy shoulder of the road. Raising his cal-.50 machine gun, he leveled it by hand and yelled out, “Come on Cobras, cross my eye. And when you do, you’re gonna die!” His Ma-Deuce barked out a stream of tracer ammo when the Rattlers made their strafing pass.

 

From one of the lead trucks, Rock & Roll, Zap and Bazooka ran for cover and dove behind a sand berm, raising their heavy weapons into the air. While Rock & Roll’s M-134 mini-gun rattled away at the passing Cobra fighters, Zap and Bazooka aimed their Stinger MANPADS handheld launchers, biding their time until the hottest parts of the Rattlers’ engines were locked on.

 

Joyride, another provisional Joe who was driving Roughneck’s Avenger vehicle, nearly lost control when he spotted the columns of sand and smoke the Rattler strafing run was kicking up. Afraid that the rounds were walking right towards their Hummer, he swerved on a dusty patch of asphalt and the utility truck lost traction on some loose material blown onto the road, skidding sideways into the soft shoulder and coming to a shaky halt.

 

“Dammit, Joyride, where the fuck did you get your license to drive these things?” Roughneck complained from the Avenger’s turret, in between bursts of cal-.50 fired from the system’s trainable machinegun. “Keep this platform steady so I can shove Stingers up those Cobra jets’ asses!”

 

“He was going to hit us, gun-bunny,” Joyride snapped back in reply. The light vehicle driver slammed the Hummer back into gear and steered the truck back out onto the roadway, squealing the tires when he floored the accelerator. “You handle the shooting and I’ll handle the driving! Light those Cobras up!”

 

***

 

“I have multiple SHORAD radars tracking us, Wild Weasel,” the dorsal gunner of his Rattler yelled while watching the flashing lights and hearing the warning tones of the RWR box in his gun station. “That convoy has a strong air defense complement!”

 

“I know that, you whiney fool!” Wild Weasel snapped back, hell bent on taking out some Joes for the deaths of his flight-mates. He glanced at the ground to his right and saw Rock & Roll, Zap and Bazooka. The sounds of Rock & Roll’s mini-gun rounds ricocheting clattered against the titanium-steel cockpit armor that he hid behind. “Take out some of those Stinger positions so they can’t kill our Mirages!”

 

“I see ‘em,” the gunner replied, slewing his twin machineguns around to aim at the three Joes. “Suppressive fire is on the way!”

 

***

 

“Come on, Joes! Form small positions and knock those Cobras bastards out of the sky!” Recondo yelled to rally some Joes and green shirts around him. Grunt, Footloose, Short-Fuse, Downtown and Falcon sprinted to a long ditch that Recondo was jumping into and nearly missed getting hit themselves by a salvo of bullets from the Rattlers’ strafing run. Once together, the six Joes opened up with their M-16A2 rifles and tried lobbing 40mm grenades at the low-flying planes from a portable Mark 19A3 40mm automatic grenade launcher, to no avail.

 

Falcon spotted the turret on Wild Weasel’s Rattler traversing to shoot towards the mound of sand Rock & Roll, Zap and Bazooka were using for cover and yelled out a warning over the din of battle. He hoped they could hear him before the Cobra gunner fired.

 

The loud mechanical buzz of Rock & Roll’s mini-gun was deafening when combined with the sounds of turbojet engines screaming past. None of the men heard Falcon’s shouted warning from the ditch just a few feet away when the dorsal gunner opened fire, walking machinegun rounds at the heavy weapons specialists.

 

The Joes’ eyes were sharper, though, and all three dove for the sand berm before the gunfire sent any harm their way. As Wild Weasel pulled out of his shallow pass to turn around, the men on the ground were cursing about losing their opportunity to shoot him down. Wild Weasel’s wingman blew past the forming Joe fighting positions as well, avoiding taking any damaging hits during the first strafing pass.

 

***

 

Climbing into a long banking turn so that he could look over the scattered vehicles of the Joe convoy, Wild Weasel raised the other attack planes on his radio. “Wild Weasel to Mirage sections, commence rocket passes and fire at will! COBRA!” He and his wingman leveled off out of Stinger range to loop around for another low pass.

 

***

 

Knockdown scrambled up into the turret of his assigned Avenger air defense vehicle, while Dodger turned the vehicle sideways across the roadway. Blaster, Blocker and Dee-Jay followed suit in an M-1114 armored Hummer, while Blocker pointed the truck’s Ma-Deuce machinegun skyward. The two Hummers represented the convoy’s rear guard and blocked the road in case Cobra commandos weren’t far behind the air strike.

 

Just ahead of the rear guard, Sci-Fi and Flash flung back some canvas that covered the bed of the truck they rode in and the two energy weapons specialists set up their Armington XMLR-3A portable laser rifles. Flash keyed a radio that was on the security team channel and called Tomahawk. “General, this is Flash. We’re gonna try to cook up the next couple Cobra fighters that try a run on us! Keep your heads covered!”

 

“Tomahawk to all elements, keep up the fight! They’re not going to strafe us with impunity!” Tomahawk yelled encouragement to all the Joes as they dispersed and fought the incoming Cobra fighters. He had Breaker switch channels to the launching fighters. “Ace! Where the hell is that air support?”

 

***

 

Ace was busy clearing the Joes’ defense sector over the convoy with the controllers aboard Quarterback 307 when he heard Tomahawk’s incoming call. “Quarterback Three-oh-seven, this is Snake-Buster Lead. We have to have that sector! The enemy attack planes are already dropping ordnance on a convoy of our comrades on the ground! Let us wipe the sky clean of ‘em already!”

 

“Three-oh-seven to Snake-Buster Lead; stand by for clearance.” The controller sounded annoyed because he was trying to vector other fighters from Hafr-al-Batin against the Cobra attack planes without endangering them by letting the Joe planes and their minimal radar cross-sections confuse the other fighter jocks.

 

“Fuck this,” Ghost Rider said quietly over the inter-plane channel. “Those are our buddies down there. No one can get there faster than us. And the Cobras only have two-to-one odds on us. We can take them without risking a friendly-on-friendly mishap with those panty-waists.”

 

“You’re right,” Ace replied. “We can handle the odds, and since they can’t seem to see us on radar, we might as well scoot on over and take care of business. Snake-Busters, let’s go help our buddies! YO, JOE!”

 

The three F-22A fighters and two X-35 multi-role planes dove for the deck and lit off their afterburners, pointing right for the Joe convoy. “Ace to Tomahawk; we had some air traffic control problems, but we’re on our way. ETA is four minutes!”

 

***

 

The first pair of rocket-armed Dassault Mirage F-1 planes swooped down, flying parallel to the convoy route. They began launching their unguided 57mm rockets at the dispersed vehicles and positions, jinking and yawing from side to side for maximum effect.

 

“Heads down, Joes; take cover!” Roughneck yelled from his Avenger turret, lighting off a pair of Stingers and chattering away with his machinegun. Joyride brought the Avenger to a halt near the dismount position Rock & Roll’s bunch had taken. Bazooka and Zap tried to acquire target locks with their Stingers as Rock & Roll covered them once again with his M-134.

 

Roadblock opened up on the pair of jets as well with his Ma-Deuce. Trying for one of the wing-mounted drop tanks, he stitched a row of holes through one and a light spray of JP-5 aviation fuel streamed out. He and many others exposed from cover had to duck quickly for a safe hiding place when the 57mm rockets began impacting on the roadway and nearby fighting positions, throwing up all manner of dust clouds and explosive shrapnel.

 

Three rockets scored direct hits on trucks along the way, exploding a fully loaded fuel bowser and cooking up two HEMTT supply trucks. Unfortunately, none of the green shirt drivers bailed out unharmed.

 

Braving the explosions and the continued rocket and gunfire raining down on the Joes’ heads, Doc led Stretcher and Lifeline out to tend the wounded and dying. Without regard for their own safety, the three medics even dragged a half-burned green shirt out of the fuel truck before the large bowser violently exploded.

 

Back-Blast manned the gunner’s station of his M-6 Linebacker while Salvo tried to keep the heavy tracked vehicle from getting hit by the volleys of Cobra 57mm rockets. He trained his 25mm M242 gun around, firing as he went and scored a direct hit on one of the Mirages’ jet engines. The attack plane exploded in a bright orange fireball, throwing scorched aluminum and metal parts all over the immediate area. “Yahoo! Scratch one Cobra attack plane!”

 

“Damn good shooting, Back-Blast,” Salvo yelled out from the M-6 driver’s station. “Now, deal with the other nine!”

 

***

 

Cheers rose up from among the Joes when those closest spotted Back-Blast’s M-6 taking out the Mirage. Flash and Sci-Fi aimed their laser rifles at the wingman, now alone and trying to pull out of his attack run.

 

“You ready, Sci-Fi?” Flash asked coolly, waiting for the Mirage to fill his targeting scope.

 

“Ready, Flash,” Sci-Fi responded quietly, as he scanned the sky for the attacking jet.

 

The second Mirage crossed over the laser troopers’ truck at an angle which precluded blasting out the canopy glass, but the specialists chose the next best thing. Both men aimed for the drop tank that Roadblock had holed with his machinegun and fired their laser rifles. The intense heat from the lasers ignited the volatile JP-5 fuel in an instant and the resulting fire traveled through the plane’s fuel system in the blink of an eye.

 

Aboard the Mirage, fire warning lights and alarms surprised the already worried Aero-Viper at the controls. Glancing frantically from side to side, he couldn’t see where on the plane the fire was coming from, until he looked at his fuel gauge. He noticed that one of his drop tanks had drained mostly out and the fire warning was from burning fuel level indicators in the wing tanks.

 

The pilot had no chance to eject, as the fire spread to the engine and shattered the aircraft from the intake nacelles back. The nose section and cockpit dove right into the desert floor at full speed, crushing the Aero-Viper inside.

 

Sci-Fi and Flash did a high-five after lowering their laser rifles. Flash gleefully yelled, “Hot damn! We fried the fucker in the air!”

 

***

 

“Blast it!” Wild Weasel swore as he circled the convoy and watched the two Mirages get flamed. “All fighters use evasive maneuvers! Target the air defense equipment first!”

 

The pair of Rattlers finished their long sweeping turn and cruised over the Tap-Line Road while the next four Mirages took their turns making diving attacks.

 

***

 

“Hey, Ace, there’s two less blips on my radar screen over the convoy,” Sky-Striker commented on the inter-plane channel. “You reckon our boys have taken the upper hand on the Cobras?”

 

“Hardly,” Ace replied. “Avengers and M-6 Linebackers are only good at close range. If the Cobras decide to back off and toss guided bombs, our troops have had it! We’ll be on them in no time anyway, so let’s play this from a stacked deck and clean their clocks!”

 

“You got it, Ace,” Maverick chimed in. “Sky-Striker and I will drop in low and break up their attack runs on our convoy if you hot shit fighter jocks want to take out the bullpen!”

 

“Sounds like a good idea,” Ace agreed, nodding while his eyes scanned the radar and open sky for hints of the enemy. “Everyone put the Master Arm switches on and prepare to engage!”

 

***

 

Falcon raised a pair of binoculars to the sky, looking for the next wave of Cobra attackers, and noticed five dark shapes silhouetted against the sun but flying from the direction of Hafr-al-Batin. He reached for an AN/PRC-77 tactical radio strapped onto Downtown’s back. “General Tomahawk, this is Falcon. We have five more bandits inbound from the east!”

 

Knockdown broke onto the radio net from the rear guard’s halted position. “This is Knockdown. The only targets I have on the SHORAD radar are the eight Cobras that we’re engaged with. You must be seeing things, Falcon!”

 

“I swear to you, they’re coming in out of the sun!” Falcon insisted, watching as the five shapes grew to resemble black shadows and then the sleek American stealthy fighters. “No, wait. Guys, I think our air support has arrived!”

 

***

 

Of the four Mirages that rolled in hot for their strafing and rocket runs, only one climbed out of the pass. One Mirage had been downed due to the combined machinegun fire from Repeater, Rock & Roll and Roadblock. The second had its single jet engine perforated with 25mm bullets by Roughneck’s M-6 Linebacker and limped out of the battle only to crash in the desert when the pilot lost all hydraulics.

 

The third was waxed in mid-pass by Sky-Striker and Maverick, who riddled it with 20mm cannon fire from their X-35 JSF fighters. Wagging their wings to signal the troops on the ground that they were friendlies, the X-35’s swept across the convoy while the pilots looked at how much damage had already been done.

 

“Damn, they scattered our boys to the four winds,” Maverick remarked, looking at how most of the convoy vehicles were off the road at odd angles, some in drainage ditches or nosed down into sand berms. They could see the smoke pillars from the vehicles hit by rocket fire and the small black shadows of Joes running to find the wounded.

 

Sky-Striker shook his head with disgust. “Those fuckers got the convoy in the open and screwed ‘em six ways to Sunday. I’ve got a threat tone, high to our three o’clock. Let’s go get us some primo payback!”

 

***

 

“Strike Lead to Mirage Six, what was that you said? Two fighters jumped Mirage Five and shot it down? There’s nothing on radar but our sections!” Wild Weasel pounded on the radar display in his cockpit, wondering how the Aero-Viper saw two conventional planes that had no radar signature shoot a fighter down. He knew from the Cobra intelligence reports that the American F-117A “Wobblin’ Goblin” stealth planes were really attack birds and not made for dog fighting. Nothing else in the known American arsenal could perform similarly, or so he thought.

 

Wild Weasel had little time to think more about the question, because his gunner suddenly shouted out a warning. “Wild Weasel! I have three bandits high and on our six! They’re closing fast!”

 

The veteran Cobra Rattler pilot looked at his radar screen in disbelief, but a glance into a rearview mirror made him do a double take. Three fighters were swooping down upon them. “Gunner! They’re not friendlies! Fire at will and keep them off our tail!”

 

***

 

“Should we use the AMRAAM missiles on them, Ace?” Ghost Rider asked, waiting to select the appropriate medium-range air-to-air armament on his HOTAS system.

 

“Negative, Ghost Rider,” Ace replied. “I don’t want to rain shrapnel on our guys. We have to break up the formation at close range. Use ASRAAM, Sidewinder or your guns. Get in close and try not to kill them right over our buddies’ heads!”

 

“I read you, Ace,” Slipstream reported. He was the closest to the attacking Cobra fighters after the planes executed a formation turn out of the sun. “I’m arming an ASRAAM and have a Mirage in my sights.” Slipstream centered the Mirage F-1 in the cross hairs of his HUD targeting display while a radar lock warble sounded in his cockpit. Confident he was ready, the former Conquest X-30 pilot triggered off the advanced, radar-homing weapon. “Fox Five!” the pilot called over the inter-plane frequency.

 

The ASRAAM, or Advanced Short-Range Air-to-Air Missile, rode the acquisition radar beam Slipstream’s F-22A projected onto the Mirage’s tail and covered the distance between the planes in seconds. Exploding behind the Mirage, the fragmenting warhead shot out thousands of steel fragments and frangible rods which tore the back of the target fighter to shreds and fouled all of the control surfaces. The Aero-Viper had a look of sheer terror when he punched out of the stricken fighter, unaware that the G.I. Joe pilot had maneuvered near enough to hit him.

 

“Splash one Mirage!” Slipstream shouted out over the inter-plane as he felt the all-too-familiar rattle of machine gun bullets bouncing off the composite skin of his plane. “Shit! I’m taking gunfire! I’ll bet it’s a sneaky little Rattler rolling around here!”

 

Ghost Rider looked about, scanning the blue sky around Slipstream. “I have him! Rattler at your two o’clock!” The X-19 Stealth pilot selected guns on his HOTAS and dove in between the enemy plane and Slipstream’s fighter, quickly aiming his nose at the blue Cobra aircraft. A stream of hot 20mm rounds sparked from Ghost Rider’s M-61A1 cannon, which sliced through the unprotected midsection of the Rattler and split the plane into two pieces as it careened through the sky. “Slipstream, your nose is clear!”


	13. Blood Guts and Speeches II

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Ten

Blood, Guts and Speeches II

 

***

 

Quarterback 307

E-3A Sentry AWACS

 

“Snake Buster Lead from Quarterback Three-oh-seven, all of your flight members must squawk three-three-hundred on your IFF channel immediately! I say again, all planes squawk three-three-hundred on IFF!”

 

Airman Hastings, the sector controller assigned to the area east of KKMC, strained to keep track of the red radar blips that represented the Cobra aircraft engaged in the air-to-ground strike. TSgt. Billings was assisting him using a plug-in headset as the pair tried to vector conventional fighters into the area.

 

What had frustrated both of the controllers was that the Joes had taken their own initiative and flown their stealthy aircraft into the sector and then gone silent on the main radio channels. When red blips began to disappear, they knew the invisible planes were doing their dirty work, but the men couldn’t release any additional fighters to even the odds without risking a friendly-on-friendly incident.

 

Having the Joe Team’s planes squawk 3300 on their IFF channel was a manual method of forcing the “Identification: Friend or Foe” equipment aboard the fighters to send out a short broadcast on its scrambled frequency. The burst signal was enough to trigger the specially-encoded transceiver equipment on the E-3 Sentry, which would register the locations of each Joe pilot on the controllers’ radar screens and allowed the onboard computers to run a trace on their IFF transponders.

 

TSgt. Billings shook his head and pounded his fist on the padded back of Airman Hastings’ console seat. He keyed the tactical frequency once more for the Joes’ aircraft. “God damn it, Snake Buster Flight! We know you’re in sector without orders and you’re not showing on our radar screens! All aircraft must squawk three-three-hundred on the IFF immediately! This is for your own safety! We have interceptors inbound to eliminate the enemy bandits!”

 

Airman Hastings nearly leaped out of his seat when he saw a single blue datum light up amidst the confused red tracks. It was surrounded by all zeroes where flight direction, speed and altitude data should have been, save for a flashing “3300” in its IFF marker. A calm voice carried over the radio waves to the controller right after the datum appeared.

 

“Quarterback Three-oh-seven, this is Snake Buster Lead. My flight is following radio silence procedures until the enemy has been cleared from our piece of sky. We’ve splashed several enemy bandits already and will call when the sector is clear. Now get off our asses and let us do our job! Our commander on the ground is getting fried if we can’t do our thing!”

 

Hastings, in the manner of all good air traffic controllers, took the desire for a pilot to operate in crowded airspace without being minded as a personal insult. “Attention, Snake Buster Lead! Your flight’s actions are highly irregular and will be logged with the Intercept Commander on board for immediate investigation by a board of inquiry!”

 

TSgt. Billings covered the mouthpiece of his mike and touched Airman Hastings on the shoulder. “Don’t bother trying to report them. They’re special operations types and have top brass on their side. Just keep our interceptors clear for their own safety, unless someone on the ground calls for more support over that airspace. For now, they own that sky and have exclusive hunting rights.”

 

***

 

The three surviving Mirages and Wild Weasel’s Rattler roared along the Tap-Line Road as often as they dared to keep the attack going, having expended almost all of their air-to-ground rocket armament. They were simultaneously strafing and dodging the deadly anti-aircraft ground fire that the various Joe positions put up with every pass. The attack planes had scored additional hits on some of the unarmored equipment, mainly lighting fuel bowsers, laden cargo carriers and empty troop trucks aflame.

 

The Cobras’ gunfire had become less accurate with every additional pass, however, because the pilots were pressing their throttles to the stops and using all the speed their planes could muster. The Aero-Vipers needed speed so the Joe fighters couldn’t catch them with their flies unzipped when they pulled out of their attack runs and climbed to the relative safety of the higher altitudes.

 

A lucky shot by one of the Mirages caused Spotlight’s M-6 Linebacker to throw one of its tracks, and no amount of effort on Grand Slam’s part could get the vehicle going again without exposing someone to enemy fire. Luckily, the powered turret was still operating, and the quadruple Stinger launcher still packed a wallop.

 

Cross-Country saw the damage that Spotlight’s M-6 sustained from behind the protection of the enclosed driver’s station in his HAVOC. Slamming his clenched fist on the electronic ignition starter and feeling the vibration of the articulated carrier’s diesel engines roaring to life, he pushed forward on the control handles and the HAVOC lurched in the direction of the Linebacker.

 

A number of Joes had taken minor wounds from shrapnel and scrapes from falling against various surfaces. At least four green shirts and a number of the Saudi MP’s escorting the convoy were dead and Stretcher was tending to Iceberg for a painful fracture in his leg. The injured had all been collected by the intrepid team medics under heavy enemy gunfire and brought back to the convoy’s “band-aid” track – an M-5 Bradley Medical Support Vehicle – and then covered by a makeshift canvas lean-to while they were cared for.

 

The Cobra pilots weren’t leaving any stones unturned, as their strafing runs came awfully close to blowing the band-aid track sky high. Fortunately for the wounded, Fast Draw and Hardball had taken up residence atop the vehicle and were firing off every disposable Stinger they could lay their hands on. Hardball also manned a Mark 19 grenade launcher that they had mounted in the track’s weapons pintle and filled the air with 40mm high explosive grenades.

 

Cross-Country cut the engine of the HAVOC while it was still rolling up to the stricken Linebacker. Raising the Plexiglas canopy of the driver’s compartment, the armored vehicle driver reached for a set of repair tools that were strapped to the outside of the M-6 and crawled underneath the armored side skirt to realign the steel and rubber treads.

 

Grand Slam spotted the HAVOC approaching from the driver’s seat of the M-6 and was worried that the vehicle was out of control, until he saw Cross-Country leap out and dodge Cobra cannon rounds before disappearing under the Linebacker’s suspension. Reaching for an M-4 carbine, the laser cannon specialist crawled through the main fighting compartment of the vehicle past Spotlight and dropped to the ground from the rear exit hatch so he could get around to cover his selfless buddy.

 

“Your track’s thrown loose, Grand Slam,” Cross-Country yelled over the din of gunfire and the screams of the low-flying jet engines. “It looks like it can be fixed though.”

 

Grand Slam slid along the sand and crouched behind the armored skin of the Linebacker as another Mirage made an attack pass. He tried fruitlessly to pump a few bullets out of his carbine into the fighter overhead. “Jesus, Cross-Country! Why didn’t you stay under cover?”

 

“All tactical options considered,” Cross-Country replied quickly, grabbing a fistful of Grand Slam’s BDU shirt and pulling him out of the way of some enemy bullets. “Your vehicle is more important than mine in this fight. Your equipment needs to be mobile, so I decided to come out an’ fix her!”

 

Another hot stream of 30mm ammo kicked up dust and rattled across the armor plating around the two Joes as they ducked and covered their heads. “You’re all heart, Cross-Country,” Grand Slam said, panting. “I owe you a beer. Or maybe you owe me one for risking my hide to cover your bull-headed ass!”

 

Cross-Country strained at the weight of the ribbon of steel and rubber as he pulled the misaligned track straight and lifted an end up against the bogey wheel to re-connect the separated track links. “Why don’t ya’ll shut up and help me pin this sucker back together, Grand Slam?”

 

Grand Slam nodded, lifting a steel track joining rod in one hand and a ten-pound sledge hammer in the other. When Cross-Country flashed him a thumbs-up, he rammed home the rod and pounded on it with the sledge until it was seated.

 

Cross-Country wiped a cascade of sweat from his brow and patted Grand Slam on the shoulder. “That tears it! Now let’s get back into the war, shall we?”

 

***

 

Surprisingly, the remaining Cobra fighters kept the battle going much longer than they had expected to when the Raptors and X-35’s joined the fray. Then again, all four of the planes maneuvered on their own, while the Joe pilots always pursued their intended targets as a pair or a trio to mutually cover each other.

 

Ace, Slipstream and Ghost Rider were very safety-conscious, not desiring to force the issue into a full-fledged furball. Sky Striker and Maverick were ballsier, trying to draw Cobra aircraft into traps singly or in pairs, where wild maneuvers would cost the pilots their lives. Because they had whittled the odds down, the Joe pilots focused on drawing the Cobras away from any high-value targets, the convoy included.

 

The MiG-29’s and Firebats of the original Alpha Strike package had mostly been chased away or flamed by the well-coordinated sector defense of Allied Tornadoes and Eagles, all managed by Quarterback 307. The handful of survivors were either being swarmed by entire squadrons of defending fighters or limping home with heavy and irreparable damage.

 

But while the whole clash for the higher altitudes was going on, eight more attack-configured Rattlers from Saddam International Airport had taken off against Destro’s instructions and were just entering the sector at full military power. The Rattlers flew as close to the ground as possible, avoiding low-flying attack helicopters over the Iraqi frontier and ground obstacles while they penetrated Saudi airspace using nap-of-the-earth piloting techniques. The Strato-Vipers and aerial gunners at the controls amounted to the remaining flights of Wild Weasel’s personal attack squadron, hand picked by Cobra’s best combat pilot.

 

“Rattler Squadron to Alpha Lead, we’re now in Sector Six and awaiting orders.” The lead Strato-Viper of the unit, Wild Weasel’s executive officer and chief instructor pilot, was second to Wild Weasel himself in Rattler flight hours and the two men often jockeyed back and forth when it came to claims of the most aircraft shot down.

 

“Major Laurent, welcome to the fight,” Wild Weasel replied. “The G.I. Joe convoy below us is our revenge for the deaths of our squadron’s comrades! Attack it at once! COBRA!”

 

***

 

Quarterback 307

 

Senior Airman Young, another member of TSgt. Billings’ crew, yelped when his radar screen flashed with red blips. “Sergeant Billings, I have a new Red Flock! Red Flock heading southwest from the Al-Basra VOR! I count eight new contacts, plus a possible five to eight high-altitude fighters like MiG-25 Foxbats!”

 

“Easy does it, Young,” Billings replied calmly, checking the senior airman’s sector on the radar screen. The eight blips had gone right into Sector Six. Billings turned back to Airman Hastings and chucked his shoulder. “Looks like those shadow-jockeys are getting more friends. Break radio silence on your channel and raise Snake Buster Lead. And, Hastings, send out a flash update on the data link for the ground pounders!”

 

***

 

Sparks almost choked when he saw the flash readout on the command vehicle’s data link. He had tied into the air defense operations headquarters at KKMC in order to get radar data from the MADGE, or Mobile Air Defense Ground Environment. The system was similar to much larger fixed installations like BADGE and NADGE, which defended Western Europe against ballistic missiles and approaching combat aircraft.

 

MADGE was a highly responsive system that networked all manner of mobile air defense detection systems and command and control stations in order to allow commands to be issued to the most appropriate asset when an air threat approached. Divisions would tie their air defense weapons battalions into the larger MADGE control element, which could include air bases, fixed SAM sites and AWACS, AABNCP or J-STARS coordination aircraft, and everyone would be able to see the entire air battle picture.

 

“General Tomahawk, sir!” Sparks called out, turning to face Tomahawk’s seat in the front of the command cabin. “MADGE data shows a new inbound unit of eight Rattlers that were identified by an Air Cavalry AH-64 platoon and AWACS. The snakes are flying nap-of-the-earth from Al-Basra. AWACS tracking says they’re coming right for us!”

 

“Get Gears and Effects on the horn, Sparks,” Tomahawk replied. “Have them advance with the Grizzly Engineer Assault Vehicle and bust through any wrecks that are blocking the roadway! Get the word to all security teams and surviving vehicles to prepare to move out! We’re not staying in the open anymore! We need to clear this sector so Ace’s flight can hammer those Rattlers to pieces!”

 

Tomahawk then rapped on Breaker’s helmet to get the other communications specialist’s attention. “Breaker, contact Dee-Jay at the rear guard and Stretcher at the band-aid track and tell them to pull up stakes and cover our forward movement. Order the rear guard and medics to leave no one behind! And get me Admiral Keel-Haul on the U.S.S. Flagg!”

 

***

 

Avalanche leaped out from the cab of the M-977 HEMTT that Flash and Sci-Fi were riding on wearing a PRC-77 tactical radio set. He ran to the Hummers parked in the rear guard position while Snow Job climbed into the bed of the heavy truck with the laser riflemen and fitted an M-214 mini-gun to a hastily-erected ring mount. Snow Storm, Wind-chill and Whiteout busied themselves uncrating belted ammo for the M-214 and loading spare assault rifles, while Frostbite leaned out of the driver’s side window of the HEMTT and shook his fist angrily at the swooping and diving Cobra jets. All five of the arctic-trained Joes had been riding along with Iceberg in one of the trucks that had taken damage from the attacking planes. They had only returned to the rear guard after humping their injured comrade to the band-aid track to be cared for.

 

“Blaster!” Avalanche shouted. “Dodger! We’re getting the call to move out! Get ready to break camp and haul ass!”

 

About three hundred meters in front of the rear guard, the medics at the band-aid track were trying to figure out how to evacuate all the wounded. The M-5 BMSV had been configured to carry a large quantity of medical supplies, so its utility as an ambulance was limited, even after much of the gear had been downloaded and unpacked for use by the ad hoc aid station.

 

Tripwire, Dart and Spirit Iron-Knife were struggling to get a cargo HEMTT free from the edge of the asphalt where part of the suspension had gotten caught. A lot of the cargo had shifted and the shoring and tie-downs had come loose during the strafing attacks, spilling most of the sealed cardboard boxes out onto the desert floor. Unable to work the heavy truck free after several tries, the men jumped from the cab and ran to the band-aid track.

 

“Hey, guys,” Tripwire said, reaching to uncoil a tow chain that hung from the BMSV. “That HEMTT is stuck but a short tow will get it free. Most of the cargo dumped, so why don’t we put the wounded on the bed and your M-5 can drag us back onto the road? We can drive the HEMTT away once the wheels are free.”

 

Stretcher didn’t waste time deciding. He hoisted two walking wounded onto their feet and guided them to the back of the truck. “Hook up the tow line and let’s do it! Once the wounded are on the truck, I’ll drive the BMSV and get this flatbed back on the straight and narrow!”

 

Spirit helped Lifeline and Doc with the other injured Joes while Tripwire and Dart took care of the tow chain. Stretcher carefully loaded the body bags of the green shirts and Saudi troops that were KIA into the HEMTT and covered them with the canvas from their makeshift lean-to. Then he fired up the diesel engine of the BMSV track, making the vehicle roar as he shifted it into gear.

 

Stretcher shouted through the vehicle cabin and his voice echoed up to the Joes on the armored top deck. “Fast Draw and Hardball, hang onto your asses!” For a moment, the BMSV strained at the tow chains. But the tracks began to bite into the roadway when the vehicle lurched ahead and the HEMTT was pulled free of its predicament.

 

Doc climbed over the few remaining boxes in the bed of the HEMTT and knocked on the cab to get Spirit’s attention. He shouted into the driver’s side window so that Spirit and Dart could hear. “We were ordered to leave no Joes behind! When the convoy moves out, the rear guard will cover us and we have to stop and pick up any Joes that are hot footing it back to the road! Got it?”

 

Spirit and Dart nodded their understanding as the rattle of Cobra gunfire from another strafing run came close to their truck. Dart hauled himself up onto the passenger’s seat of the HEMTT and opened up a top hatch, firing his assault rifle into the air at the passing enemy jets.

 

***

 

Base Hospital, King Khalid Military City:

 

Walkabout rushed into Duke and Crypto’s hospital room, apparently out of breath as he dusted himself off and slung his assault rifle over a beefy shoulder. He addressed Scarlett excitedly in his naturally thick, Australian accent. “Oy, Sheila, you’d better come quickly! Tomahawk’s convoy is under attack by Cobra airplanes, and its one bonzer fistfight out there! Rock & Roll and Steeler met the convoy at the southeastern checkpoint and they’re caught with the blokes! Stalker found some newly-arrived provisional Joes down from Kuwait City, and we’re armed up and ready to go find ‘em!”

 

Scarlett turned her blue eyes to look at Duke. His eyes told the story without a word said. Hauser wanted so badly to hop right out of bed in battle togs and go bust caps on the Cobra jets, especially for strafing Crypto in the earlier attack. But the injured leg could become a liability to the team.

 

Duke smiled at Scarlett and patted the holster on her waist. “Leave Crypto and me your automatic, Red. We’ll hold down the hospital while you troopers go get Tomahawk and bring him in! I’ll radio you if any Rattlers get overhead! YO, JOE!”

 

After handing over her Smith and Wesson .45 automatic, Scarlett followed Walkabout out the hospital’s emergency room entrance where three U.S. Marine Corps LAV-AD vehicles had come to a stop. Stalker was waving to them from the commander’s cupola of the lead vehicle, and Double Blast was adjusting a coaxial Ma-Deuce next to the Ranger. Low-Light, Snake-Eyes and Kamakura were in the troop compartment of Stalker’s LAV-AD, preparing handheld Stinger launchers for the battlefield. All of the provisional Joes were milling around next to the column, mumbling and pointing at Scarlett as she walked towards the Marine vehicles.

 

Walkabout didn’t give the new troops much time to banter. He charged up to the cluster of Marine assignees to the Joes and pressed his mustached face urgently into each of theirs. “Come on, you rawhide blokes! You ain’t out on the Flagg practicing your pickup lines now! Get your pansy-ass Marine hides into those shit-wagons! We’ve no time to lose! I don’t want to see our commanding general lying arse-over-tit out there on a sand dune, got it? NOW, MOVE!”

 

The squad of eleven new Joes were all seconded from parts of the Marine Corps, and scrambled for the vehicles, save for one. He wore the colored bars of a Chief Warrant Officer CW-3 and appeared lost when Walkabout began shouting for the men to mount up.

 

Walkabout ran to the Warrant Officer and got into his face, still prodding the troops to get a move on. “Right! Mount up! Lock and load those weapons! And what’s yer excuse? You look like a bloody peacock standing there with your colorful rank bars on! Are you growing a set of fucking feathers under the sun?”

 

The Marine Warrant, code named Glyph, stiffened and spoke softly. “Sergeant Walkabout, I’m a cryptographic analyst. I haven’t ever fired a shot in anger other than to make my annual weapons qualification.”

 

Walkabout unslung the M-16 from his shoulder and shoved it into Glyph’s hands. “I thought you were picked for this unit because you were special! Your commander is caught in a firefight and all you want to do is sit here cracking codes? Every Marine is a rifleman first, remember? With all due respect, SIR, get the fuck on board that LAV or Sergeant Major Stalker and I will personally drum you right off the Arabian Peninsula without a floating horsey!”

 

Glyph wanted to open his mouth and say something in protest, but upon seeing that the Australian SAS trooper’s face belied his seriousness, the Warrant cleared his throat and ran for the closest LAV troop hatch.

 

From the hospital room, Duke was able to see out the window as the three LAV-AD vehicles rounded the building and sped off towards the east. Scarlett had popped her head out of a crew hatch and was waving at him. She looked very much the desert flower to him, as her long red ponytail trailed out behind her. Duke waved back, knowing there was too much dust for her to see him in the window.

 

Duke checked to see that Crypto was still sleeping off his pain medications before stripping off his hospital gown and climbing back into his desert camouflage battle dress. Crypto stirred and opened his eyes, surprisingly more lucid than the top sergeant had thought. “Duke... You shouldn’t be going out there.” Crypto raised a hand to steady himself as he rolled in the bed to a seated position on its edge.

 

“Sorry, kid,” Duke said, buttoning on his BDU shirt. “You need to be the one resting. I need to go fix some Cobras’ little red wagons.”

 

“No way,” Crypto replied, getting to his feet and jerking open a closet on his side of the room where a fresh set of his uniforms had been left. He dressed quickly and cupped a fist in his open hand. “I’m with you all the way, Duke.”

 

“Hush up, kid,” Duke hissed as a passing nurse turned her head in the direction of their room and then moved on. He pulled out his Kevlar helmet and plopped it onto Crypto’s head. “If you’re coming with me, wear a god-damn brain bucket this time and strap it on right, for God’s sakes!”

 

Stuffing Scarlett’s automatic in his pocket, Duke cautiously opened the door to the room and both men evaded the patrolling nurses. They quickly exited the hospital to the adjacent parking area and ‘borrowed’ a Saudi army jeep and a pair of M-16 rifles that some MP’s left unattended. Duke fired up the jeep’s motor and turned into the dusty roadway to follow Stalker’s section off base.

 

***

 

Roughneck studied the extra blips registering on his SHORAD radar unit while Joyride reloaded the spent Stinger tubes in the Avenger’s box launchers. “Dammit, hurry up, Joyride! They’re gonna hit us in four-ship sections this pass!”

 

Joyride muffled a curse under his breath as he shoved a pre-packed Stinger missile tube into its place on the launcher. “I’m going as fast as I can gun-bunny! Keep watching your ‘I Love Lucy’ shows in there and let me finish!”

 

Grand Slam hauled himself back into the M-6 Linebacker while Spotlight was rotating the turret to replenish his Stinger launcher. Meanwhile, Cross-Country was parking the HAVOC off to the side of the road and waving for a pair of green shirts to take over the vehicle for when the convoy began moving again.

 

“Grand Slam, is everything okay out there?” Spotlight asked, climbing down from the power turret and unlocking a rack of replacement Stinger missiles.

 

Grand Slam nodded. “I think we’re good to go, Spotlight. Cross-Country fixed a thrown track for us and we should be able to get underway in a New York minute.”

 

After a moment, Cross-Country climbed into the troop compartment of the Linebacker and helped Spotlight hoist the Stingers up into the launching pod. “It looks like you two need a bit of help! Let’s get this Rattler killer back on the move, Grand Slam!”

 

Grand Slam climbed back into the driver’s station and fired up the vehicle’s diesel engine. Shifting the armored carrier into forward drive, he soon had the tracks turning again.

 

***

 

Lieutenant Falcon’s team of Joes met up with Rock & Roll, Bazooka and Zap by following the contours of the road’s drainage ditches like a long battle trench. He rapped on Rock & Roll’s helmet to get the machine gunner’s attention over the noise of the shooting.

 

“Rock & Roll,” Falcon shouted. “We’ve gotten the call to move out! When Backstop pulls up in a HEMTT, that’ll be our ride! We’re all mounting up in the cargo bed and making that our mobile fighting position!”

 

Rock & Roll nodded in acknowledgment to Falcon’s update, while a long burst of fire from his mini-gun shattered the cockpit glass of a passing Mirage, killing the pilot and bringing down the Cobra jet.

 

Not too far away, in the M-4 command vehicle, Tomahawk reached for the boom mike mounted on the vehicle commander’s CVC helmet. “Heavy Metal, this is Tomahawk. We’re dead if we run out of Stingers and remain stuck on this road! Get this pig moving and take the head of the convoy! We’re moving out now!”

 

As Heavy Metal complied, the roar of the M-4’s engine made the whole vehicle vibrate. Sparks and Breaker were busying themselves calling out to all the security teams that the move was underway.

 

Tomahawk opened the top hatch of the command vehicle and climbed onto its upper deck, shaking his fist at the circling Rattlers. “Come on, you cowardly bastards! Come and fight us while we’re shooting on the move!” He noticed Joyride and Roughneck had stopped what they were doing at their Avenger to watch him with looks of awe. “Get mounted up, Joes! Point those hot Stingers at the enemy aircraft! FOLLOW ME!”

 

***

 

Ace broke away from Slipstream and Ghost Rider to follow the incoming bandits as they turned to start their runs on the convoy. Using the HOTAS, he armed the ASRAAM rotary launcher in the F-22A’s internal weapons bay, and the drum-shaped missile magazine turned to face a ready missile out the weapons bay doors.

 

Although the aerial gunners could see the gray shape of the Raptor looming closer and closer, the sleek shape and tiny radar cross-section made it hard for them to aim using the Rattler tail gun’s radar-assisted fire control. They fired nonetheless, trying to keep their tails clear.

 

“Joes! Look sharp!” Ace called out on the inter-plane frequency. “I’m lining up for a double play!” Ace switched the multi-mode nose radar in his fighter to track-while-scan, which allowed him to couple the weapons targeting system to multiple targets at once. Ace pointed the Raptor’s nose at the trail Rattler, who was farthest behind the formation, and waited for the radar lock tone.

 

When the familiar wail of the radar lock tone sounded, Ace keyed his microphone for a split second to say, “Fox Five!” and then triggered his ASRAAM missile. The radar and targeting computer downloaded the last cues to the missile in the short moment between Ace pulling on the HOTAS trigger and the rotary launcher releasing the missile into space.

 

As soon as the first ASRAAM had fired its rocket motor and was lancing through the air, Ace rolled left to aim for the trail plane’s wingman. The rotary launcher groaned mechanically as it turned to set a new missile in the bay doors for launch.

 

“Missile alert! It has terminal radar lock!” shouted the aerial gunner in Rattler Twelve when the RWR panel lit up in his turret station. He desperately sprayed the sky wildly with the turret gun in an effort to detonate the weapon while the Strato-Viper at the controls killed the afterburners and tried a banking turn to evade.

 

The ASRAAM, however, wasn’t like the older semi-active, radar-guided shots that most air forces had in inventory. It was a smart munition with a tiny computer brain that performed millions of calculations per second while keeping the warhead on target. Much like the ASRAAM’s big brother, the AIM-120 AMRAAM, the seeker in the missile was autonomous after getting a programming burst from the launching plane’s targeting computer. Both models of advanced munitions were claimed to be ‘unavoidable’.

 

The ASRAAM proved its designers right when the Rattler’s climbing turn only proved to present a larger radar target for the missile and it detonated between the engines and the wings, blasting the plane to pieces with an immense fireball as the fully loaded fuel tanks and wing ordnance exploded.

 

As the trail Rattler’s drama unfolded, Ace was already coldly locking onto the wingman, Rattler Eleven. With another terse “Fox Five”, a second ASRAAM went speeding towards the pitching attack jet and within seconds of Ace turning away to safety, the ASRAAM struck home and blew the enemy plane out of the sky.

 

“Yahoo!” Ace called out jubilantly. “Splash two more! The convoy’s clearing the Tap-Line Road, people, so let’s turn this into a deadly furball for the rest of those Cobras! Split up and engage the enemy singly! YO, JOE!”

 

***

 

“You don’t have to tell me twice, Ace,” Maverick replied, peeling away from Sky-Striker’s X-35. “I’m sighting in on a new target, Sky-Striker. Happy hunting!”

 

Sky-Striker was already concentrating on the last Dassault Mirage in the attack force as the two planes banked and weaved about three thousand feet in the air. “Tally-Ho! Sky-Striker is on the last Mirage and engaging with guns!”

 

The M-61A1 20mm cannon in Sky-Striker’s nose rattled angrily as it fired several salvos of depleted uranium shells into the air. The Joe fighter pilot hit pay dirt with the gun when the rounds stitched through the aft fuselage of the Mirage and acrid black smoke poured out of the engine. Several small aluminum panels from the skin fell away as well, while the Mirage shakily wobbled, the Aero-Viper fighting to regain control of the jet.

 

After a few moments of wobbling, the Mirage’s engine fire puffed out like a snuffed candle. Without thrust or electrical power and hydraulics to work the controls, the Aero-Viper had no choice but to fire his ejection seat as the French-made fighter pointed its nose to earth for the last time.

 

***

 

“Stingers away!” Roughneck yelled to Joyride from the Avenger’s weapon turret as the angry hiss of four FIM-92 Stinger missiles leaping from their box launcher filled the air. “Keep us close to the General’s command vehicle this time, you crazy wheel-man!”

 

Joyride had to shift in his seat to try and avoid the overpressure of the Stingers firing behind and to his left. “Don’t blow our wad in one sitting, gun-bunny! I’m not stopping to reload this again until we make it inside the base perimeter!”

 

Roughneck whooped with glee as his four Stingers knocked out a pair of passing Rattlers. “What was that you said about blowing my whole wad at once, Joyride? Kick that accelerator and keep up with the General’s track, will ya?”

 

***

 

“Tally-ho!” Ghost Rider yelled on the inter-plane channel as he lined up on a pair of Rattlers. “Enemy in sight! Fox Five! Fox Five!”

 

Two ASRAAM missiles leaped from Ghost Rider’s F-22A and streaked through the sky. The Rattlers tried to turn in different directions to evade the weapons, but failed when the missiles blasted into their engines and the planes exploded in twin fireballs.

 

“Good shooting, Ghost Rider,” Ace called out. “Hey, guys, all of you watch your gas. I’m at almost one-quarter remaining on the main wing tanks. We’ll have to turn back soon and call for relief.”

 

Ace switched frequencies to reach Tomahawk on his command track. “Sparks, Breaker or General Tomahawk, this is Ace. We’re at our borderline on go-juice. The flight may have to knock it off soon to refuel and rearm.”

 

Aboard the M-4, Tomahawk plugged his helmet headset into the radio intercom to reply. “Ace, your flight did a damn fine job. We can hold up against the odds! Clear out as soon as your planes go bingo!”

 

Ace acknowledged the General’s order and then switched to the inter-plane frequency. “Okay Joes, this is Ace. Knock it off. I say again, knock it off. Return to Hafr-al-Batin to refuel and reload.” The flight leader then reached for his control panel and hit the IFF squawk button. “Quarterback Three-oh-seven, this is Snake Buster Lead. We’re RTB for gas and guns. Sector Six remains hot! Over and out!”

 

Tomahawk turned to Breaker, looking down from the open top hatch of the M-4. “Breaker, what channel is the Flagg on?”

 

Breaker flipped a few switches to put Keel-Haul’s frequency onto Tomahawk’s headset. “I’m changing you over now, General.”

 

***

 

Aboard the U.S.S. Flagg, klaxons sounded as the Navy crew brought the ship to battle stations and a pair of G.I. Joe pilots ran to their ‘ready-five’ aircraft near the steam catapults. Ready Fives were the planes a carrier kept on high alert, that could leave the ship in five minutes or less to handle an emergency.

 

“Grapes”, purple-shirted aircraft fuel handlers, were still scrambling around the ‘ready-five’ attack fighters as they topped off the drop tanks and main fuel bladders in the Super Hornets’ wings. Admiral Keel-Haul stood atop a catwalk next to the ship’s maneuvering bridge, which overlooked the flight deck and the teeming activity on it.

 

A ‘talker’ ran out from a bridge hatch carrying a radio extension for the Admiral and handed the handset, shaped much like a normal telephone, to the senior officer. The petty officer stood aside as the Admiral took the sound-powered phone and accepted the call.

 

“This is Admiral Keel-Haul,” the commander of the Flagg said calmly.

 

“Tomahawk here, Admiral. Do you have any planes that can relieve our Hafr-al-Batin flight?”

 

Keel-Haul nodded while he watched yellow-shirted aircraft handlers manning small tow vehicles on the flight deck. They were moving the pair of armed F/A-18E Super Hornets onto the catapult launching tracks. As each fighter was locked into place, large blast shields hinged up behind the jet engines and the pilots adjusted the tail fire with their throttles until it was an intense orange flame. “General, I have two Super Hornets on the way from here. I’m not sure if you know the pilots, but Zephyr and Mud-Mover are on deck to provide you cover. They’ll be airborne in less than five minutes.”

 

The General nodded and grabbed onto an interior handle to steady himself as the command vehicle hit a bump in the Tap-Line Road. “Get them here as soon as you can, Keel-Haul. Tomahawk out.”

 

***

 

On the flight deck, U.S.S. Flagg:

 

“Flight computers are green and all weapons systems secured. Throttles up to zone five. Super Hornet Four-zero-one is locked and loaded.” Zephyr, a Marine pilot seconded to the Flagg from VMFAT-101, the elite fighter training unit, reported over his intercom to a yellow-shirted aircraft marshalling officer who stood beside his fighter with a headset plugged into a port under the nose.

 

“Okay, Captain Zephyr,” the yellow shirt replied. “Stand by for hand signals.” The aircraft director unhooked his headset and closed a handful of last-moment doors on the Super Hornet, running to a small trench built into the deck with his fist raised. Another yellow shirt, the catapult “shooter”, raised his trigger assembly so Zephyr could see that he was also ready. The process was repeated by two similar officers working the catapult to Zephyr’s right, where Mud-Mover waited to take off in his Super Hornet.

 

Mud-Mover broke into the main channel right after Zephyr had reported ready to the Air Boss, the chief air traffic controller on the carrier. “Mud-Mover in Hornet Four-zero-two reports ready to kick some Cobra ass!” The junior pilot of the departing section, Mud-Mover was Ace’s F-15E weapon systems officer after the Joes disbanded in 1995 and Ace had returned to the mainstream Air Force to fly the Strike Eagle. Qualifying as a Joe fighter pilot in his own right, this launch would only be Mud-Mover’s tenth combat sortie.

 

From the catapult operating trench, a ‘talker’ flashed a rotating blue light to warn the deck personnel to get clear, and the aircraft directors gave the pilots a thumbs-up. In reply, the pilots pushed the throttles all the way to the stops for maximum thrust and snapped a quick thumbs-up and salute to the catapult crew.

 

Each pilot had to grab onto a pair of special handles provided inside the Super Hornet’s cockpit during a “cat shot”. The F/A-18E was so sophisticated, that the flight computers essentially flew the fighter during the launch process better than a human pilot could. Until the fighter physically left the deck and grabbed onto some sky, the pilot was just a passenger.

 

The catapult officers raised their triggers one last time and glanced around to make sure there was no crewman in the launch path, or any objects that might damage the planes. Each officer in turn dropped to one knee, touched the deck, and fired off the catapult trigger as they pointed down the deck.

 

With a hellish whine, the steam catapults pushed large pistons that dragged the Super Hornets down the flight deck, accelerating them from a standing start to over one hundred fifty knots and launching them off the bow of the Flagg. After each one dropped off the end of the deck, the pilots grabbed the controls and the jets flew on their own, climbing up into the sky.

 

***

 

Over the Joe convoy:

 

“Keep striking, Rattlers!” Wild Weasel shouted as more and more of his pilots were knocked out of the sky by the Joe combat pilots or their comrades manning the air defense vehicles among the convoy.

 

As he completed his last pass, the Cobra ace spotted Tomahawk standing inside the top hatch of his command vehicle and directing the convoy with hand motions. “There he is,” Wild Weasel thought to himself. “I can at least kill the General, and Cobra Commander’s mission objective will be satisfied.”

 

Without warning the other members of his flight, Wild Weasel pulled his Rattler into a turn and flew in a new path, different from the pattern the attackers had established. The cold-blooded aviator aimed the nose of his plane and its deadly 30mm armor-killing gun right at Tomahawk’s M-4.

 

***

 

Near the KKMC inner perimeter:

 

Stalker’s column of LAV-AD air defense vehicles roared away from the KKMC complex to meet the convoy. Even from a distance, the sergeant-major could see the diving and weaving fighters attacking the Joe vehicles and hoped casualties were light. Double-Blast was manning the M-163 20mm cannon aboard Stalker’s LAV and he flashed a smile that the weapons were ready. Driving the lead vehicle was Crumple-zone, a rawhide trained to drive the LAV in combat.

 

Scarlett had taken the commander’s seat in the third vehicle of the column, and saw Sundial, a Marine LAV commander transferred to the Joes, commanding the middle vehicle. Sitting next to Sundial in the open gunner’s hatch was Sideways, a Navy SEAL. The second vehicle also had a rawhide named Dustbowl crouched inside the driver’s compartment. None of the Joes scanning the desert saw the Saudi army jeep carrying Duke and Crypto bouncing down the roadway a short distance behind.

 

In the back of Scarlett’s vehicle, Hotshot, a Marine tank commander and gunnery expert, climbed into the weapons operator’s console and warmed up the Vulcan gun and Stinger launchers while Bulls-eye, a Marine Security Forces sniper, tried to keep the LAV moving at full speed. Walkabout had crammed the other rawhides in among the Stinger reloading pods and was briefing them with what to do when they made contact with the main convoy.

 

Siege, a Marine infantryman, Trigger, a grenadier, Scavenger and Moonstone, a pair of Force Recon Marines, and Glyph the crypto-analyst, listened carefully to Walkabout as he yelled over the din of the LAV diesel engine.

 

“Stay inside the vehicle while it’s moving!” Walkabout yelled to the rawhides. “We’ll take our cue from Scarlett! If something goes down outside or the vehicle takes a hit, bail out from the rear ramp and carry your bloody rifles with you! Most of all, you be careful out there! Most of the flying bullets are just addressed to whoever gets in their way!”

 

***

 

Tomahawk caught the Rattler bearing down on the command vehicle in the corner of his eye and reached down into the main cabin. His fingers found the firing handle of an M-202 rocket launcher and the general hauled the weapon up and onto his shoulder. “Come on, Cobra, eat hot missiles!” thought Tomahawk as he sighted in on the fighter.

 

Roughneck rotated the Avenger turret as soon as he saw Wild Weasel’s Rattler dropping into its attack run. “Joyride! There’s a Rattler coming for the general! Get us in between them!”

 

Joyride nodded as his hands flew across the Hummer’s steering wheel. With a cloud of sand and road dust billowing up behind, the driver spun his vehicle out and drove it off the road so Roughneck could take a missile shot before the plane could strafe Tomahawk’s track.

 

Roughneck began to struggle with the Avenger’s electric traverse control as he tried to aim the loaded Stinger pod in the Rattler’s direction. Failing to get the motor going, he unlocked the turret gearing and grimaced as he threw his weight and muscle into turning the turret manually. Once he got the turret into position, Roughneck triggered the entire remaining brace of Stingers but nothing happened. He kicked at the trigger mechanism and pounded on the box launcher itself. Eventually the Stingers launched with a roar, but all four missed the Rattler when it deployed flares to confuse the heat-seeking weapons.

 

Roughneck leaped out of the Avenger’s turret and pounded on the Hummer’s roof as Wild Weasel’s plane began firing its 30mm cannon. “Come on, Joyride, we’re sitting on a big target here!”

 

Joyride leaped out of the driver’s seat and the two Joes ran for safety as Wild Weasel’s cannon sent a stream of hot rounds through the Avenger and it exploded violently. Vehicle parts and thin aluminum sheets from the missile turret were scattered everywhere.

 

Joyride turned to Roughneck and smiled. “Well, gun-bunny, it was fun while it lasted. What say we go hitch ourselves a ride?”

 

With a quick glance in Roughneck and Joyride’s direction to see that they were unharmed, Tomahawk armed the four antitank rockets in his M-202. “Come on and try to take me, Cobra!” the general yelled. “Come right down and hit me!”

 

***

 

The exploding Avenger partially obscured Wild Weasel’s view of Tomahawk’s M-4 command track, but the infra-red picture on his attack display was still centered on his hated enemy.

 

As he passed through the cloud of black smoke from the exploding Avenger, Wild Weasel rested his thumb on his cannon trigger, biding his time so that he could see Tomahawk die at his hands.

 

Time seemed to pass in slow motion as the blue Rattler nosed through the smoke cloud. Tomahawk gauged the distance to the enemy fighter and when he felt the plane was close enough, he fired off all four rockets.

 

Wild Weasel’s natural vision had cleared when he saw the four black, needle-thin shapes shooting for his fighter. At the last possible second, he tried to shoot the gun and roll his plane simultaneously. The 30mm cannon rattled as it fired, but the rounds went over Tomahawk’s head and sprayed harmlessly into sand dunes in the distance. The M-202 rockets all streaked into Wild Weasel’s left engine and blew it to pieces.

 

With no choice but to flee, Wild Weasel turned away from the battle and watched in disgust as the two Super Hornets from the Flagg and the LAV-AD vehicles from KKMC arrived to dispatch his remaining Rattlers.

 

***

 

As Zephyr and Mud-Mover chased the last retreating Rattlers away from the Joe convoy, General Tomahawk called a halt once more. The surviving vehicles all pulled off to the side of the road and Crypto and Duke’s jeep finally reached the head end of the string of trucks and tracks.

 

Spirit drove his HEMTT truck, laden with the injured, Doc and Lifeline up past the main body, until he brought it to a stop next to Tomahawk’s M-4 command vehicle. Frostbite was right on the tailgate of Spirit’s truck with a number of green shirts, Roughneck and Joyride on board. Roughneck and Joyride had both acquired some bleeding cuts from bailing out of their Avenger right before it exploded.

 

Tomahawk turned his attention to Spirit and Frostbite, waving them on. “Get those wounded to the base hospital, pronto! Follow Stalker’s column back to the base and they’ll get you there!” Within moments, the two cargo trucks barreled off, leaving a cloudy trail of sand and dust.

 

The general then turned to face Crypto and Duke, with hands on his hips. “As for you two glory-hounds,” he said sternly. “I have half a mind to make the Saudi MP’s take you into custody and force you to stay in your hospital beds!” He then cracked a smile, knowing that he hired hard chargers for the Joe Team, and the men he wanted to lead them into battle had to be the best of the batch.

 

“Seeing as how we seem to have lost our MP escort, I guess you two get a break this time. Get out of here, you bums, and get cleaned up. We’re having an all-hands briefing on the base in four hours, after everyone’s had a chance to cool off from this Cobra attack.” Tomahawk dismissed Duke and Crypto with a wave, as the walking wounded went back to their borrowed jeep and turned it around to lead the convoy onto the main base where the unit could finally lick its wounds.

 

***

 

King Khalid Military City

G.I. Joe Team Assembly Area

1330 hours, local time

 

After some time to rest and tend for each person’s needs, almost 75% of the Joe Team was logged in country at KKMC. The remaining quarter was detached to the U.S.S. Flagg for amphibious missions downrange and to serve as a reserve element. Flint’s unit was due to arrive by the end of the day, and most of the rawhides assigned to the Joes had already gotten a baptism by fire of sorts.

 

The convoy had lost a total of seven green shirt truck drivers killed in action, and the fourteen Saudi MP’s that were serving as guides and escorts had all bought the farm. Five Joes and twenty green shirts had been wounded in the action, mostly ranging from scrapes and cuts to lightly fractured bones and superficial bullet and shrapnel injuries.

 

After a detailed series of x-rays, even Iceberg had been determined to only have a minor sprain in his knee and a pinched nerve which was causing him all the pain. The American army doctors at the KKMC hospital said everyone would be cleared for duty within 72 hours of being seen.

 

Colonel Courage, Lt. Colonel Sure Fire and Captain Grid-Iron took the four hours of down time to establish General Tomahawk’s main nerve center at KKMC, setting up all the necessary administrative work to begin generating operational orders for the teams infiltrating Baghdad. Crypto and Glyph worked with Scarlett to finish setting up an S-2 area for the intelligence information, and all of the available Joe communications and computer experts (Sparks, Breaker, Dial-Tone, Dee-Jay, Mainframe, Daemon, Firewall and Sgt. Hacker) pitched in to get a radio network up and running before any teams had to leave.

 

Major Steeler busied himself with making heads or tails of the damaged and undamaged vehicles and what equipment that was brought along would be able to go across the border for mission tasks. Duke, Sgt. Major Stalker and Tomahawk discussed the overall operational strategy over a few cups of lifer’s juice.

 

Eventually, as per the general’s orders, the Joes began to file onto the main assembly area in their part of KKMC, and the whole unit was abuzz with excitement as they waited for General Tomahawk to come out and brief everyone. A large number of the aircraft support supervisors and all of the Joe pilots flew over from Hafr-al-Batin by MH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter to attend, including the rookies Zephyr and Mud-Mover.

 

A platform and temporary wooden podium had been set up at one end of the assembly area, and a special American flag flapped gracefully in the wind. The flag’s former home had been every base the Joes called the PIT, from Staten Island, New York to the outskirts of Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah. Tomahawk never turned in the unit’s “Old Glory” when the Joe Team stood down in 1995. It now flew again as a means to inspire the Joes, both old and new.

 

The sounds of hustle and bustle around KKMC seemed to fade back beyond the assembly area as Tomahawk took the podium. The anxious buzz of hundreds of conversations among the troops suddenly fell silent. Members of Tomahawk’s senior command staff, Major General Sharpe, Brigadier General Flagg, Colonel Courage, Duke, Crypto, Steeler and Captain Grid-Iron included, filed onto the platform and took seats in folding chairs behind the general. Breaker had also rolled up a remote satellite transceiver that was connected to the U.S.S. Flagg and her internal audio-visual system so that the embarked team members could listen in, along with Admiral Keel-Haul and General Joe Colton, the original G.I. Joe and a strategic advisor to the current commander.

 

Stalker, one of the two Joes billeted as a Command Sergeant Major, called the assembly area to attention when General Tomahawk tapped on the podium’s microphone and the electronic feedback squeal echoed across the open space. “Stand at ease, troopers,” the general said over the PA system, and the whole assembly area relaxed.

 

Tomahawk shuffled a handful of notes, cleared his throat and began speaking slowly. “Most of you already know how I like to run my unit, so I’ll make these remarks brief. Your group leaders and my command staff have already circulated briefings from CENTCOM during our trip over here from the various posts that we occupied Stateside; briefings which explain why the United States and the United Kingdom are involved in aiding in the defense of the Arabian Peninsula. Allied lives have already been lost, given up heroically so that justice and freedom might stand tall in this part of the world.”

 

The general sipped at a canteen cup of cool water before flipping a note card and continuing. “But G.I. Joe has been called in for a much more dangerous mission. It has been determined from initial evidence found early in the military intervention that Cobra has been actively involved in rearming the Iraqi military. And, we have it on good authority that Old Snake-Face himself is quarterbacking the show up in Baghdad along with our old local enemy, Saddam Hussein.”

 

Tomahawk took another sip. He nodded as several group leaders passed around bottles of chilled spring water to their people and kept side chatter to a minimum. “We have been sent here to protect America’s interests in the region, but more importantly, we’re here to kick Cobra ass! Undercover operations since Desert Storm have at times successfully gathered intelligence information linking Cobra to the Baghdad regime. This time, we’re going in to fight back! Our primary mission goal is to destabilize the seat of power that is controlling the current campaign. We are to target points or personnel of strategic importance and eliminate them!”

 

A cheer rose up from among many of the veteran Joes, some of which had been seconded to a joint forces advisory unit during Desert Storm and were disappointed when Saddam wasn’t removed from power for good. Oddly enough, Crypto fell silent when the others cheered. The thoughts and memories of an ordeal in Baghdad long past occupied his mind again.

 

“Right now, we have seventy-two hours to get organized here. This will be the main operating location for our unit. Backup headquarters and our amphibious strike force will operate from the U.S.S. Flagg, on station in the Persian Gulf and covering the Kuwaiti coastline for the Navy. Temporary forward operating locations will be deployed behind the enemy lines to support penetration missions and manned by strike support teams. We have already forward-deployed an elite air group to Hafr-al-Batin Air Base. My staff officers, sitting behind me here and on board the Flagg, will have initial operations orders for many of you in three days’ time. Good luck to all of you. I know you’ll do America and the free world proud! YO, JOE! Dismissed!”

 

***

 

Aboard a CH-53C Super Stallion, flying northwest from Bahrain:

 

“Yee-hah!” Wild Bill whooped from the cargo helicopter’s cockpit. “That was some speech from the General. He never lost his touch with rallying the troops!”

 

Flint nodded his head from the right seat of the helicopter, where the Aircraft Commander normally rode. “That’s why he’s the boss, Bill. Coax a few more horses out of this old crate, pilot. My troopers in the back are itching to bring some payback to Baghdad too.”

 

“We’ll be there straight away, Flint,” Wild Bill replied with a smile, turning the large helicopter into one of the pre-determined air corridors monitored by the orbiting AWACS as safe flight lanes. “It’ll be two hours to wheels down at the King Khalid army helicopter port.”


	14. The First Downrange

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Eleven

The First Downrange

 

***

 

G.I. Joe barracks compound

King Khalid Military City

23 July 2002, 0400 hours, local time

 

Glyph yawned and stretched where he sat, at a small desk near the main entrance to the Joes’ multi-level barracks structure. He was manning the barracks’ “CQ” duty between midnight and 0800 hours. The CQ, or Chief of Quarters, was in charge of logging all entries and exits after normal daylight hours, leading the barracks fire watch patrol, and ensuring the general security of the personnel sleeping inside the facility along with any military property stored there.

 

Being posted to either of the Dog Watches (the four hour duty periods between 2000-0000 and 0000-0400) meant that the Marine in question was either a junior in the unit paying his dues, or he was in trouble with the senior NCO. Glyph was the latter, after Walkabout had reported the incident outside the base hospital to Stalker. The Command Sergeant Major had seen to it that Glyph was given the duty for two weeks straight. This was over and above his regular duties, and Glyph already regretted mouthing off like an idiot.

 

Two men in American camouflage BDU’s entered through the outer set of glass doors of the barracks and approached a small intercom panel on the wall nearby, since the inner doors next to which Glyph sat were kept locked. The inner glass panels were reinforced and worked like one-way mirrors. The guard inside could look out, but those in the entry lobby couldn’t see in.

 

Steeler and Beach-Head were standing in the entry with hands on their hips, expecting Glyph to have responded without them using the door buzzer. Beach-Head was already muttering one of his favorite derogatory phrases about ‘crackerjack operations’ and ‘lazy recruits’.

 

Steeler pressed once on a small button at the bottom of the intercom panel. The low electronic buzz of the intercom startled the Marine warrant officer and he began to stir, losing his balance on the edge of the desk and making a loud thump when his boots hit the floor. Beach-Head didn’t need the intercom to get the Marine’s attention.

 

The rough and ready Sergeant Major and chief of training stood facing Glyph as if he could see the errant Marine through the inner security glass and shouted to him. “Wake the fuck up, watch stander! You had better make your god-damn security challenge in the next five seconds or I will bust through these fucking doors, rip off your stupid-ass head and shit down your neck! Get your lazy ass up and on your feet, you fucking rawhide!”

 

“Advance and be recognized,” Glyph ordered quietly, flipping a switch to turn the main entrance lobby’s lights up.

 

Steeler spoke into the intercom in reply. “Steeler and Beach-Head are here. We’ve just come from the operations room. General Tomahawk has ordered us to post a downrange mission and secure the team for briefing.”

 

Aware that security procedures were supposed to be very tight in the Joes’ compound, Glyph quickly remembered the challenge and counter-sign of the night shift. “I challenge Sparrow. Please respond with the counter-sign.”

 

Steeler nodded with a smile. “The counter-sign is Foxtrot-November-Golf-Sierra, otherwise known as the ‘fucking new guy’s shift’.”

 

Glyph shook his head, because all of the Joes have been using the counter-sign with derision to poke fun at his incident with Walkabout, the news of which had spread like wildfire through the ranks. He pressed on the security lock button and the inner doors buzzed when the locks were disabled.

 

Steeler and Beach-Head walked into Glyph’s lobby area and picked up the CQ rooming list to find their late-night quarries. “Please sign the entry and exit log, gentlemen,” Glyph reminded the pair, pushing the watch log book and a pen across the desk.

 

Beach-Head snatched up the log and pen, growling angrily at Glyph while he handed it over to Steeler. “You had better not been sleeping on this fucking watch, Marine. Drawing this shit duty will be nothing compared to what we’ll do to you if we find out you were. Don’t let me catch you at anything less than full alert and manning your post with due diligence. Not ever. Now, stand at attention and stay there until we leave.”

 

Glyph sat at his desk, listening to Beach-Head’s angry warning. It seemed like the whole thing was going on in slow motion and his body wasn’t getting to attention out of the chair fast enough until Beach-Head got a fistful of the Marine’s BDU and hauled him to his feet. “Jump, yard-bird, and stand at fucking attention!” Beach-Head said with an annoyed snarl. “Don’t make me repeat myself, asshole!”

 

Steeler signed himself and Beach-Head in, also jotting down the names of the Joes who were being taken out of the barracks for their mission briefing. He then reached out a hand to Glyph and said curtly, “The master room keys, please.”

 

After a few minutes of shouting and bed-tossing, Steeler and Beach-Head had the six Joes they were looking for. Lieutenant Falcon, Lady Jaye, Mutt, Rock & Roll, Sergeant Zap and Big Ben lined up in the barracks lobby rubbing their eyes and looking very annoyed at having Beach-Head charge into their private quarters and rousting them so early.

 

Moments later, a Hummer cargo/troop carrier pulled up to the barracks, and Steeler led the Joes on board. By the time the vehicle left for the command center, Glyph had kicked his feet up on the CQ desk and was back to yawning. The next fire watch walk around the barracks was still fifteen minutes away.

 

***

 

G.I. Joe Operations Center, KKMC

0415 hours, local time

 

The Operations Center was fairly quiet, as the late night communications watch monitored the CENTCOM command channels and other signals being broadcast around the area of KKMC. Most of the transmissions were high-level data packets with instructions from the Corps Commands to the maneuver forces holding the Iraqi Army and Cobra Forces at bay on the Saudi frontier. Tomahawk paced around a large map table marked with graphics of Baghdad and the areas surrounding the city.

 

The General didn’t notice that Lieutenant Falcon’s team had been brought in by Beach-Head and Steeler and ushered into a comfortable briefing room adjacent to the large open area where most of the operations staff worked. It took Steeler walking up to Tomahawk and a brief salute and report to bring the commander into the briefing.

 

“Room! Ah-tench-hut!” Beach-Head yelled as the assembled team snapped to. They had arrayed themselves in rows facing a briefing board with maps and a projection screen.

 

“At ease, troops,” Tomahawk replied in a low tone, closing the briefing room door. “Take your seats.”

 

Steeler sat behind the general, at a laptop computer and video projector which he used to display figures on the white screen. Tomahawk moved to the front of the room with a long pointer in hand and waited for Beach-Head to finish handing around some prepared briefing folders to the team members.

 

When Beach-Head finally took a chair to one side, Tomahawk cleared his throat and began speaking. “I’m sorry we had to rouse you this early, but your names came up for this first job, and we still have a lot of prep work with little time given to do it.”

 

The General pointed to an area map of Baghdad and its environs. “You are our critical first infiltration unit. The mission is to penetrate the city of Baghdad and retrieve a CIA asset who has been in the city for weeks locating a number of critical facilities for us to knock out as part of our ‘seek and destroy’ campaign to topple Cobra and the current regime from within the capital.”

 

Tomahawk turned to face Falcon and Big Ben respectively, where they sat in the room. “Falcon will be in charge of the job, assisted by Big Ben, because of your obvious skills from the Green Berets and British Special Air Service and prior service in the region during Operation Desert Storm as behind-the-lines operators.”

 

Big Ben nodded calmly from his seat, mentally taking notes on some things he’d have to work with the team on prior to going in-country.

 

“After all the remaining preparations are completed, you six will board a B-52G bomber, which will ostensibly be part of an American over-flight formation. Under the cover of a ‘Rolling Thunder’-type bombing raid on supply lines and main movement routes between Baghdad and the front lines to the south, your bomber will break formation under radio silence, cover the distance to the drop zone and you will deploy from the bomb bay using some old Falcon gliders that we’ve re-marked to look like Cobra Viper hang gliders. Their fabric and aluminum construction will help you avoid being spotted on radar while you glide to the city from the DZ.”

 

Tomahawk pointed to a route marked on the city map. “Your landing point will be just outside the city near a Cobra-established tent camp our satellites spotted. It is a bare-bones garrison, probably for troop training, and your cover will be aided if you make an appearance there in character and finagle some enemy vehicles to ride into town. You need to make your way northeast to the Fakesh Bazaar, one of downtown Baghdad’s merchant complexes, and scour it for the deep cover agent. We’re doing our best to cobble together some usable Cobra uniforms, since some Desert CLAWS and Desert Scorpion outfits were captured during recent contacts with the enemy on the battle lines.”

 

Falcon raised his hand from the front of the room. “General, this may sound like a stupid question...”

 

Beach-Head chimed in, annoyed that Falcon was interrupting. “Shut your pie-hole, Falcon. With you, they’re all stupid...”

 

Tomahawk whirled in Beach-Head’s direction with a look that could melt steel. “At ease, Beach-Head, unless you want to go downrange in the Lieutenant’s place. Go ahead, son.”

 

“Sir,” Falcon continued. “How will we find this CIA asset? I don’t see any sort of photos in here to identify the person, or any sort of specific field craft that has to occur to make the agent identifiable like a prearranged date and time, dead drop or a folded newspaper...”

 

“That is for both your safety and the agent’s,” Tomahawk replied. “In the event any of you do get compromised, the agent’s identity is safe if Cobra decides to interrogate you or use a brainwave scanner.”

 

The general pulled out what looked like a cross between a small cellular “flip” phone and walkie-talkie. “I trust you all are familiar with the Nextel-type phones we use for general communications, paging and such when we’re stateside. Because of the satellite connections, this phone is ideal for use in place of a standard PRC-77 backpack radio or SATCOM MX-2020 set in the field. However, our field phones are special. You can call normally on civilian networks, but there’s a button under the battery cover to switch you to scrambler mode.”

 

“You can send text messages or voice calls to our base station here and Cobra’s standard signals ECM can’t screw it up. You can also wire up a digital camera and transmit small packages of images back to us, or an Army-issue portable laptop can send information back like electronic mail through the scrambler.”

 

“Our phones are also set up with a GPS locator mode, which means you will get an exact triangulation of your position within one meter, which is good for sending back target coordinates. Each phone uses a unique security code and a blank prompt, so someone who just picks it up cannot change modes or make calls on it. But we can know that it’s you without you saying so, in cases where you have to operate quietly.”

 

Tomahawk handed his working example phone to Falcon, who hefted it in his hands and looked it over admiringly before the general spoke again. “Each one of you will be given a unit, which we’re calling a TDC, for Tactical Disguised Communicator. The ion-cobalt batteries are supposed to last for forty-eight hours of steady use, longer if the phone is kept in a standby setting. They can be recharged with a standard voltage inverter, like any cell phone. The inverters we’re issuing your team have an international adapter for this area, and a pop-out solar cell in case you’re stuck somewhere remote and need to charge up or send a panic signal.”

 

“The panic signal is sent immediately when you set the phone to secure mode and dial ‘911’. Special encoded receivers in an extraction craft, a ship, Killer WHALE or helicopter, can home in on the phone as long as the battery lasts.”

 

“The TDC is meant to be innocuous, since people the world over, even in a combat zone, inevitably have cell phones nowadays. And since it’s your short or long range communicator, we have reasonable redundancy if everyone takes one downrange. Like its civilian counterpart, you can dial for a person-to-person call or do an all-call to the entire team once the phones are programmed. Each TDC will be pre-set with the functions you’ll need before you go.”

 

Tomahawk passed around several more sample TDC units for the team to look over. “Now back to your question of how we locate the contact in the Fakesh Bazaar. The agent was provided a device which is compatible with these phones. The device sends out a signal with a range of about a hundred feet. When the signal is received by any of the team phones, the phone will ring like there was an incoming call. But the caller ID display will read the numbers ‘999’. That’s how you’ll know the agent is close. The TDC will keep ringing for twenty rings regardless of any button you press on the unit and then go silent. Most casual observers will discount this as the phone screwing the pooch, since the feature mimics that of a handful of publicly-sold digital phones. The agent will look for someone picking up their phone while it keeps ringing. It’s a simple method and too ambiguous to draw special attention.”

 

Lady Jaye eyed one of the example TDC units skeptically. “We have all those features in this tiny package? Wow, Mainframe and the technicians must be getting overtime pay for this toy! I just hope it works under battle conditions.”

 

“It will work,” Tomahawk replied to the intelligence specialist. “We tested them under some pretty harsh situations. Any other equipment for the op will be drawn from our central stores team and you can check it all you want yourself before take-off.”

 

“So far, so good,” Big Ben remarked from the back of the room, where he had propped his feet up on an empty chair next to him and was reading his mission handouts. “And when we execute the first phase of getting our asset in tow, then wot?”

 

Tomahawk traced the rest of the path on the city map, to an area tagged with a sticky arrow and a label that read “abandoned river warehouse”. He drew a circle around the location with his pointer and began speaking. “Big Ben, this semi-abandoned river port on the Tigris is your next stop. I won’t reveal your extraction method, but I will say that upon successful completion of your recovery task, when you report in to base, we will dispatch your pickup and you need to be here when they come for you. Your team will not be issued long-term rations, only a few MRE packages each, so that you can carry as much weight in weapons and ammo as possible. This op has been planned not to take longer than 48 hours on the ground.”

 

Big Ben shook his head and put his hands behind his neck, leaning back to think. “General, with all due respect, I hope for the sake of this team that you’re dispatching lots of fireworks in case the op does go longer than forty-eight and we’re stuck in a pinch!”

 

“We won’t leave you out there, Big Ben,” Tomahawk replied in a firm tone. “That much I will promise you, even if I have to lead your extraction myself or have to fly you a re-supply drop personally.”

 

Falcon nodded as he looked over the river port complex. It had good defensible abandoned buildings with a commanding view of enemy patrol routes, large open spaces sufficient for a transport helicopter to land for a dust-off, and boats on the river would be an escape option as well. “Good choice, sir. We should mark that spot as a possible assault staging area in case we hit the city in force.”

 

“Already done, Lieutenant,” Tomahawk replied, pleased that his soldiers were always on the ball when they had a mission on their minds. “Okay, people. Beach-Head and Steeler have your pre-departure checklists and will make sure every item is taken care of. Don’t talk about this to your teammates if you happen to pass any around base. I don’t want separate operations to have knowledge of each other for operational security. Let’s get it on! Dismissed!”

 

***

 

 _U.S.S. Flagg_ , CVNX-99

Somewhere in the Persian Gulf

0415 hours, local time

 

Aboard the floating city that served as home for the Joe Team’s backup force, Admiral Everett P. Colby, codenamed ‘Keel-Haul’, waited in a quiet conference room, reclining in a leather swivel chair. After a few minutes of waiting and punching away at a game of solitaire on his laptop computer, a knock sounded at the door. “Enter,” the Admiral called out.

 

The knob turned slowly and Lieutenant Skip Stone, the Joes’ only Coast Guard officer, led a crew of eleven other Joes into the room. There was just enough room for the group to fit around the long table and along the walls once everyone had settled in.

 

“Stay at ease, gentlemen,” Admiral Keel-Haul ordered, as a mess steward stopped by with a cart loaded with donuts, coffee and other snack foods for the group. The senior officer leaned back and waited for the mess steward to finish his appointed task and leave before beginning the briefing.

 

“Now, I trust you are all comfortable, because we need to spend a while with this briefing,” the admiral began, starting the ceiling-mounted LCD video projector and bringing up a display much like the graphics Tomahawk was using to brief Falcon’s infiltration team.

 

“General Tomahawk is ordering a section of six Joes to penetrate the city of Baghdad, in order to retrieve a valuable Allied asset and loads of intelligence gathered within the Iraqi capital. You twelve people, along with Deep-Six, who is working on his SHARC on the hangar deck, will be the extraction unit.” The Joes around the room, all of them Navy combat sailors and Marines, traded excited glances.

 

“You may have noticed that we’ve moved a number of pallets of building materials down from the cargo loading deck on oh-three-level to the hovercraft well deck since the last rendezvous with the combat stores ship _U.S.N.S. Niagara Falls_. What we’ve been constructing down there is the modular framework for a breakaway shell which will make one of our Killer WHALE hovercraft look like a trash hauling barge.”

 

“A trash hauler?” Shipwreck moaned. “Our mission is to tool around enemy territory looking like a fly-ridden, shit-infested garbage scow? Whatever happened to going out and blasting the Cobra bastards with a frontal assault?”

 

“SHIPWRECK, SHUT THE HELL UP AND LISTEN!” the rest of the assembled group shouted. Shipwreck cowered in the corner of the briefing room with a hurt look on his face.

 

“Once the barge disguise is completed,” the admiral continued, “The Flagg will meet up with a small Iranian-flagged river tug called the _M.V. Hammurabi_ during our next coastal sortie under the UN-sanctioned ‘Freedom of Navigation Patrol’. Under cover of darkness, the river tug will tie up to the WHALE in the well deck and push it into the Tigris River delta, all the way up to Baghdad. The CIA has provided an Arabic speaker and veteran river rat who knows the area, to be the tug’s master. Legitimate paperwork has also been forged to portray their agent as a refuse barge operator. Some of you will work on deck as his hands during the trip, while the rest will man the WHALE weapons systems and stay under cover in case of trouble.”

 

Keel-Haul paged through a few PowerPoint slides that outlined the land team’s route of march until he found a slide with the grid coordinates of the pickup point. “You will put ashore at this partially-active freight transfer port near downtown Baghdad along the river. This is your pickup zone. You’ll use the small whaleboat that belongs to the _Hammurabi_ and/or three Zodiac rigid hull inflatables to pick up the Joe ground unit and anything they’re bringing back. Although tactically more dangerous, if you encounter Cobra hydrofoil patrols or Iraqi river protection boats, play your cover and tie up alongside the piers, claiming a mechanical problem of Clutch’s design. You won’t have any contract cargo there, so the authorities will hopefully just inspect the tug’s engine room and order you to move on after you get squared away.”

 

“I’ll work out the details of communications with Cutter on the WHALE. This mission will be completed mostly under radio silence, but some new satellite communications will be issued in the form of special ‘TDC’ units that look like cell phones. If everything works out and the secrecy of this op isn’t compromised, you’ll all get away under cover and back to the open waters of the Gulf where the tug will rejoin the Flagg after dark to deliver the garbage barge back to the well deck. If not, your orders are to cut the tug and barge shell loose and fight your way out to the Gulf, using the heavy firepower, speed and maneuverability of the WHALE to accomplish this task.”

 

Keel-Haul looked about the room and addressed the team members with their specific tasks. He first focused on the Marines in the room, Topside (the naval gunnery expert) and Rampart (the shoreline defense expert). “Gung-Ho and Leatherneck, you men will be assigned to the WHALE gun tubs. Mirage, Topside and Rampart will provide light fire support from the _Hammurabi_ with cal-50 machine guns, or they will man the gun and missile systems on the WHALE. Clutch will serve as the hovercraft and tugboat’s mechanic; your job is to keep the gas turbines and diesels humming, Marine.”

 

After the Marines, Topside and Rampart nodded their understanding, Keel-Haul faced the other end of the table where the team’s sailors and SEAL commandos had been clustered, hovering over a pile of jelly donuts the mess steward left behind. “Cutter will be in overall command of the pickup mission and the WHALE in particular. He will work with the tug’s master in achieving the mission objectives. Shipwreck will be the fire control man on the WHALE and the emergency radio operator. You will also be in charge of the VLF transducer and hydrophone that will keep the WHALE and Deep-Six’s SHARC talking. Tracker, Torpedo, Wet-suit and Wet-down will be the ship-to-shore recovery team. You’ll coxswain the small craft and provide small arms cover for the Joe ground team’s extraction to the barge. Deep-Six and the SHARC will be shadowing the _Hammurabi_ for as long as possible while submerged in the main river channels to provide emergency cover, aerial fire support or a diversion. Cutter and I will brief him after we’re done here.”

 

The admiral reclined slightly to reach for a bottle of spring water and drank it slowly, watching the eager faces of the Joe veterans as they looked each other over. After a moment’s pause, he set the water bottle down and asked, “So... Are there any questions?”

 

***

 

Al-Mohammad District

Al Batin, Saudi Arabia

1000 hours, local time

 

A desert wind howled through the empty shells of abandoned buildings in the Al-Mohammed District, technically regarded as a civilian segment of the town of Al-Batin, which neighbored KKMC’s outer perimeter. In reality, the silent neighborhood had been taken over by the Saudi and American armed forces to use as a MOUT instruction area. The clusters of buildings were ideal for training soldiers in ‘Military Operations in Urban Terrain’, or what used to be called ‘house-to-house fighting’.

 

Two HEMTT trucks pulled up to the edge of the area of abandoned buildings and discharged their cargoes of G.I. Joe troopers. Beach-Head leaped from the cab of the first truck and went into an immediate tirade, shouting for the Joes to fall out of the trucks and get organized.

 

“Let’s go, you dirty sand slugs!” Beach-Head shouted, un-slinging his M-4 carbine and loading a clip of blank paint ammunition. “Draw your exercise magazines and fall in by fire teams! Let’s move it! We have seven little rats to catch in this maze!”

 

Beach-Head checked his watch and didn’t even need to call Flint concerning the exercise. While a check-in with the range controller, Flint in the case of the day’s evolution, was necessary, it had been planned to play a trick on Falcon’s team to see how sharp their teamwork was. The ranger’s pursuit team, playing Iraqi or Cobra security forces, was going after Falcon’s staging area without warning rather than following the time schedule Falcon’s copy of the exercise orders had in the plan.

 

Two dozen Joes, arrayed in fire teams of four, were Beach-Head’s pursuit unit. They were more than enough to cover the ten square mile exercise area and box in Falcon’s team at their initial point. With silent hand motions, Beach-Head sent the troops into the town mock-up to begin the hunt.

 

***

 

Elsewhere in Al-Mohammed District:

 

Mutt growled and leaned up against a wall while he tapped the sand out of one of his combat boots. “Why the fuck do we have to run around this abandoned neighborhood like a bunch of jackasses, huh?”

 

Big Ben propped his MAG-58 machine gun against the wall next to Mutt and held one of the dog handler’s shoulders so he wouldn’t tip over as he put the boot back on. “Mutt, we have to get some practice as a team in urban escape and evasion and ambush tactics. This kill house exercise will simulate our pickup at the Fakesh Bazaar and a worst-case scenario where Cobra troops pursue us to capture the agent. We have to make good decisions and work together to get all seven people to the objective, which would be our extract point.”

 

Lady Jaye approached the pair of Joes as Mutt began lacing up his boots. She had Snake-Eyes in tow. “Hey there, guys,” she said. “Snake-Eyes is playing our agent for this exercise. Falcon, Zap and Rock & Roll will be here in a moment, after they call the exercise commander to let them know we’re ready.”

 

As soon as the report was given to Big Ben, who was leader of the half-team formed by himself, Mutt and Lady Jaye, Falcon appeared from behind a low building with Zap and Rock & Roll. The men stacked their rifles and Rock & Roll’s M-60E3 light machinegun next to Big Ben’s and circled up with their comrades.

 

“Are you all ready, Joes?” Falcon asked, producing a TDC and dialing over to Flint. As the team members nodded and Snake-Eyes flashed a thumbs-up, he raised the TDC to his ear. “This is Falcon, Flint. We are a ‘go’ to commence the exercise.”

 

Flint’s voice was clear and arrogant-sounding when it came over the TDC. “Falcon, your team had better get your asses moving lickety-split! Beach-Head’s pursuit force is already working their way to you. Surprise!”

 

Falcon clapped the TDC shut and pocketed it, grabbing up his assault rifle and shoving Snake-Eyes ahead of him. “Move out now! They duped us like raw recruits! Pursuit is already on the way!”

 

Big Ben snatched up his MAG-58 and tossed Rock & Roll his M-60E3. “Then we learn this on the run. We should maneuver in pairs, two ahead, two with Snakes, and two behind. That gives us the best all-around coverage and we can fall back on each other if we make contact with the pursuit force or a wrong turn. Let’s go and stay no more than thirty meters apart! Mutt and I will take point!”

 

Mutt patted his assault rifle and the magazine of paint ammunition while he charged the weapon. “Ready when you are, Sergeant Bennett.”

 

“Zap and Rock & Roll,” Falcon ordered while Zap picked up his assault rifle and loaded a 40mm paint grenade into his M-203 rifle-mounted grenade launcher. “You two take trail while Lady Jaye and I move with Snakes. Haul ass! Yo, Joe!”

 

***

 

“All teams, radio silence from here on,” Beach-Head ordered, picking through the shell of a single-story building with his fire team of Joes. “Report to me only if you are in contact with the rats and give location and direction of march. Beach-Head out.”

 

The fire team accompanying Beach-Head was made up of Repeater, Crater, Tunnel Rat and Crosshair. Switching to hand signals to issue commands, Beach-Head shushed the fire team and then made the signals for ‘perimeter’ and ‘take cover’. The team silently fanned out to cover every direction while Beach-Head listened for sounds of Falcon’s team stomping around as they were most likely on the run.

 

Another fire team moved in single file along the outer wall of a building across the street from Beach-Head’s position. Led by Stalker, the other team of Recondo, Muskrat and Switchblade was about to set up an intersecting kill zone in order to set an ambush for Falcon’s team. The four Joes quickly disappeared under cover and waited quietly.

 

***

 

Big Ben and Mutt stood back to back inside a doorway, using the building walls for as much cover as possible, scanning ahead with their eyeballs and looking for signs of ambush patrols along their intended course. Falcon and Lady Jaye had hidden with Snake-Eyes behind the cover of an overturned automobile across the street from Big Ben and Mutt’s doorway. Rock & Roll and Zap were pressed hard against a wall at the far end of the block, covering the intersection behind the team.

 

“Contact!” Zap whispered into his TDC and transmitted the message over the two-way radio feature. “There’s a fire team one block to our south and moving parallel.”

 

“Keep an eye on them,” Falcon radioed back. “We’re moving another couple blocks east and then going to take a northbound swing. If the cover’s good or there’s a shortcut in an alley, we’ll change direction again. Big Ben, lead off the next movement.”

 

Big Ben flashed Falcon a thumbs-up in lieu of using the TDC and leveled his MAG-58, which was in a combat sling over his shoulder. Crouching down to plant his feet, he sprinted out to the corner of the next block and looked about cautiously while Mutt cradled his M-16 tightly against his shoulder and shuffle-stepped to the corner, aiming at the street corner on the far side. When the pair was together again, Big Ben waved to Falcon that it was safe to move closer.

 

When Falcon and Jaye hustled Snake-Eyes out from behind the car wreck to a blank wall on the street opposite Big Ben and Mutt, Zap and Rock & Roll slid back along their wall and raced to a crawl space between two small buildings where they could cover the other pairs. They had hoped the fire team they spotted moving by was in too much of a hurry to have noticed their position.

 

***

 

About halfway between intersections, Captain Claymore led another team of hunters and quickly signaled a halt with an outstretched open hand. Wreckage and Saber-tooth, who were on the far side of the street, ducked right into a doorway and froze with weapons at the ready. Big Brawler backed up to the side of the closest building and made himself as small a target as possible while Claymore pressed against the same wall and paused to think.

 

“Big Brawler, I think we may have passed them at the last intersection,” Claymore thought out loud. “I’m having one of those sneaking feelings.”

 

Big Brawler nodded. He knew from training with Claymore that the jungle trooper’s gut feelings were uncanny. “We should pop back and take a look. Maybe Wreckage and Saber-tooth can take the next corner and try to spot them moving if they’re going parallel to us.”

 

“You’ve got the right idea, trooper,” Claymore replied, signaling the other two Joes to move ahead and hold at the next corner until they caught up. When Wreckage and Saber-tooth sprinted out of their doorway and down the street, Claymore and Big Brawler retraced their steps to the last corner to have a look.

 

By the time they had returned to the last corner, Falcon’s team was already on the move again and out of sight behind buildings. Claymore leaned around the corner at the intersection and scanned the roadway and buildings with his binoculars. “Damn. There’s no sign of them.”

 

The ear bud under Claymore’s helmet buzzed when his TDC came to life. Wreckage was reporting in to Beach-Head. “Wreckage to CP, we have enemy contact! We are at grid Alfa-Fifteen and the target element is moving east, one block north of us. They look like they’re coming straight into your ambush position!”

 

Claymore let go of his binoculars and clapped Big Brawler on the shoulder, turning him around. “I knew it! Let’s go back the others up!”

 

Wreckage sent one last brief message before going off the air. “We’re engaging the enemy unit with small arms fire! We’ll herd them your way, CP!” Just as Wreckage cut the signal on his TDC, Saber-tooth opened up with his M-249 SAW, which could cover the hundred fifty meters to the street where Falcon’s team tried to clear the open intersection.

 

***

 

“Cover!” Falcon yelled, shielding Snake-Eyes while Lady Jaye twisted to fire down the cross street with her M-4 carbine. A hail of paint rounds splattered against the building walls and roadway while Falcon shouted a warning to the others. “Incoming fire on the cross street, oriented south! Regroup on the southeast corner!”

 

“Shit!” Big Ben cursed, turning back to face where Falcon was shoving Snake-Eyes behind cover and the sounds of Lady Jaye trading weapons fire with one of the hunter fire teams. “Crafty bastards waited for the point to go by. Since they know our standard MOUT training, they knew how we would protect Snakes. And our mission fails if Snakes is taken out or captured. Come on, Mutt, we need to rally on Falcon and figure out a new direction to move.”

 

Lady Jaye got clear of the open area, firing as she ran, and Zap and Rock & Roll crossed the roadway right behind her. The group scanned in all directions cautiously while the volume of fire from Claymore’s team slackened and they searched for better positions to assault from.

 

“Now what?” Lady Jaye asked. “They’re bound to have more teams working their way here.”

 

Falcon glanced at the exercise map and shook his head. Big Ben didn’t seem to be offering any pearls of wisdom while he covered his direction with his machine gun. “We need to turn the tables on these guys. I’ll bet a month’s pay that they jumped us because there’s an ambush around here someplace. At least that’s what I would do if my position was reversed with Beach-Head.”

 

The Green Beret looked up at the higher levels of the empty buildings. “Let’s make this battlefield three-dimensioned and give the hunters more angles to cover. If we knock out one fire team and their ambush is convinced we’re still headed their way, we can break free of their collapsing bag tactic and we’ll have even odds to go for the objective. What do you all think?”

 

“You’ve got the right idea,” Big Ben replied, moving over to the corner with Rock & Roll. The two machine gunners sprayed return fire at Claymore’s team to keep them from advancing towards their position. “Beach-Head thinks he had the drop on us since the exercise started, and the teams are still working a grid search. I don’t know if we can traverse the upper floors of some of these structures, but it’s worth a try.”

 

“We have to keep that team’s attention, Falcon,” Jaye noted, cocking her head in the direction where Big Ben and Rock & Roll were firing short bursts to conserve their ammo. “How do we trick them into thinking we’re going into the ambush?”

 

“We’re still going to give them a fire team to chase, that’s how,” Falcon said. “As much as I don’t like the idea, the only way we could possibly achieve our objective is to split up. We have to realize right now that the six of us are of no consequence compared to the importance of the intelligence we’re recovering. I’d rather not leave anyone behind, but we have to consider that it could happen.”

 

Falcon straightened his Kevlar helmet and adjusted the tightness of its chinstrap. “Jaye, you and I will continue to handle Snake-Eyes, but we’re taking to the high ground. We might actually have a slight advantage if we can observe the OPFOR from above and undetected ourselves. Big Ben will stick to our planned route of march for now, but if we spot an ambush kill zone, we use the TDC to have the ground team break contact with any pursuers and join us up high. Beach-Head’s teams will be too busy scouring the surface that they would be slow to start a house to house search. This will give us time to navigate to the objective from above.”

 

Everyone nodded their agreement including Snake-Eyes, who wasn’t supposed to give the team any hints on a course of action. Finding a door on the northwest side of the intersection, Falcon smashed the wooden portal to splinters with his rifle butt and Jaye ushered Snake-Eyes inside and up to the roof.

 

“Okay, blokes, we play the diversion for the package,” Big Ben said. “Back on course for us, boyos. Break contact now and continue east. Falcon’s gonna watch our asses from above.”

 

***

 

Walkabout held the straps of his LBE gear tightly to reduce clatter and noise as he sent a quick voice report to Beach-Head on the TDC. “This is Walkabout, calling CP. We’re in grid Alfa-Fourteen heading south. I’m anticipating contact in five minutes.” Strung out in a single-file line, Alpine, Bazooka and Tripwire followed the Australian SAS colour sergeant, scanning the streets and alleys while carrying their weapons ready to fire instantly.

 

Beach-Head looked out over a partially crumbled masonry wall, listening for the sounds of gunfire that would give him the direction to point his ambush teams. “The plan is going smoothly. We have them on the run and the guys are boxing them in. When they herd them this way, we open up and catch them in the prepared kill zone. Crater, flash Stalker a warning with your flashlight and then keep your eyes and ears wide open. I want to know as soon as there’s a direction we hear weapon reports from.”

 

Withdrawing a laminated sector map of the exercise area, Beach-Head used a china marker to indicate the grid quadrants where Claymore and Walkabout’s teams were and the rough location of Falcon’s group. He smiled when the indications of Falcon’s direction led the team right to him.

 

***

 

“Watch the noise! We don’t want to give away our new position,” Lady Jaye said in a low tone, after Falcon had heaved a large chunk of broken masonry through a plywood door, letting the morning sunlight from the roof into the stairwell the Joes had taken refuge in.

 

“It got the job done,” Falcon replied, scrambling up onto the roof. He leaned over the building’s edge and saw the figures of Big Ben and Mutt moving east and Zap and Rock & Roll backpedaling about fifty meters behind them. “Let’s get the hell out of Dodge.”

 

Because most of the buildings in the Alfa-Fifteen quadrant were two-story structures clustered closely together, it was relatively simple for Falcon, Jaye and Snake-Eyes to leap from rooftop to rooftop. They eventually got ahead of Big Ben’s group and had to stop to give the others a chance to close the distance two stories below.

 

Peering over the edge of another building, at the northwest corner of an intersection, Falcon spotted two dilapidated single-story shacks on the eastern corners. From their vantage point, Jaye pointed down at silhouettes of people lying prone and all holding weapons. “Falcon, there’s the ambush. We have to get Big Ben to turn now and come up here. If the other fire teams are trying to re-establish contact, this is the time to confuse them.”

 

Falcon looked back down the street and saw Big Ben sprinting out from a doorway and coming to a stop behind a wrecked APC that was halfway imbedded into a wall. He picked up his TDC and sent an alert to Big Ben. “Big Ben, this is Falcon. We’ve spotted an OPFOR strongpoint at the next intersection. Wait for Zap and Rock & Roll at the APC and then come up to the roof. Is the other fire team in hot pursuit?”

 

It only took moments for Falcon to get a hushed reply from Big Ben’s TDC. “We picked up a second fire team that broke into a run behind the first, but we kept their heads down and then broke contact to maneuver. We’re going to pop some smoke to get everyone’s attention and then climb up the closest dumbwaiter. Be there shortly.”

 

No sooner than a heartbeat after Big Ben’s TDC went silent, the characteristic whoomping sounds of detonating smoke grenades echoed down the street and columns of colored smoke filled the air between the OPFOR fire teams and the prepared ambush. After the smoke grenades went off and Jaye observed the ambush team scrambling into fighting positions, Mutt burst through a small skylight and hauled his teammates onto the roof.

 

“Where are we?” Mutt asked once everyone was safely atop the roof. “How much farther is the objective?”

 

Falcon pointed to the laminated exercise map and traced out their position and objective. “Two blocks north is the control tower in quadrant Alfa-Fourteen, here in the old public park. That’s where Flint is waiting for us. We have two streets to cross and I don’t know how many other fire teams are out looking for us. We also don’t know if the objective is being watched. Have any ideas?”

 

“We should stay high until we get to the next street and then cross it at ground level. That seems the obvious choice,” Zap suggested. “We haven’t the equipment to do zip lines and even if we could, aerial crossings between buildings would expose us to enemy fire if a sentry post was on the ground waiting for us like that strongpoint.”

 

“Beach-Head would have to have a plan to cover the objective if we haven’t spent his riposte by tying them up with the smoke screen,” Rock & Roll interjected. “Why not approaching the objective from a new direction? It would take a few extra minutes to circumnavigate the park, but I’d say it’s worth it.”

 

“Rock & Roll has a point, Falcon,” Lady Jaye said, keeping her eyes on the scrambling Joes at street level. “But we’d better move now; they’re fanning out to look for us and the smoke is clearing.”

 

“Since this isn’t a voting democracy,” Falcon concluded. “It’s time for a final word. Let’s go with Rock & Roll’s idea. However, if we see a wide open opportunity for an end run on the goal, we take it. Understood, everyone?” The group nodded in unison.

 

***

 

“Claymore, did they double back in your direction after popping the smoke?” Beach-Head asked angrily over his TDC.

 

“Negative, Beach,” Claymore replied. “No joy on this side. Hold your fire, we’re approaching the cloud. I don’t think they’re going to take on twice their number.”

 

“They know the rules of a recon party,” Beach-Head responded quickly. “They know they can’t overpower us so they break contact and look for a way out.”

 

While the thick colored smoke was already dissipating into the air enough for the fire teams to start meeting up with each other and look for clues, the issue of Falcon’s team’s near-miraculous disappearance did just what it was supposed to. The hunters were confused long enough for Falcon’s group to make good their evasion.

 

The Joes among the hunter teams began thrashing about the entire block where Falcon’s team broke contact, looking for clues that would betray the direction that they went. To Falcon’s team’s advantage, their objective, which would be the pickup point in Baghdad, wasn’t revealed to Beach-Head, so he had to try an educated guess as far as where to move his primary defense. However, without developing new contact, his decision-making could be too little and too late.

 

Beach-Head did have one weapon that made a difference in his decision-making process. He listened to the surroundings and heard soft sounds of moving gravel up and away from where his Joes were searching for clues and checking the buildings. He thought the aberrant sound came from the north, but up high. It didn’t sound like people scrambling through the back of a building to come out on an adjacent street.

 

“Wait a second,” Beach-Head yelled to those closest to him. “Claymore, hold the ground with your team and Walkabout’s. The rest of you, let’s play a hunch and scour a couple of these rooftops. Maybe the high ground can help us.”

 

***

 

Falcon’s team covered the first northbound block very quickly, leaping over short gaps between the buildings until they got to the next street corner. They had to scramble to locate a way off the roof, and ended up busting through a sheet of plywood that covered a crawlspace and an old apartment underneath. One by one, the team dropped into the upper floor until it was Snake-Eyes’ turn. He dropped into the room and landed nimbly on the balls of his feet, but then dove to the floor, clutching his left lower thigh.

 

“I know you’re faking, Snakes,” Mutt bellyached. “Dammit, now we have to deal with a simulated injury. Hey, Falcon! Snake-Eyes can’t move under his own power anymore. He’s got a busted lower leg bone!”

 

Falcon ran to Snake-Eyes’ side and looked at the commando while he played at clutching his ankle and rocking back and forth from the pain. “Fuck our luck, Mutt! Okay, let’s move him to street level and get down the block. You help me with Snakes, and Jaye can take point with Big Ben.”

 

Big Ben and the rest of the team were pointing their weapons out of small cubbyholes and broken parts of the building’s masonry wall on the ground floor. Without speaking, their eyes all asked one another what was taking Mutt and Falcon so long with Snake-Eyes. They turned to cover the sole wooden stairwell when heavy pairs of footsteps clattered down the steps.

 

“Wot happened?” Big Ben asked softly when Falcon and Mutt worked their way down the narrow steps sideways with Snake-Eyes draped over their shoulders.

 

“The package took the drop a little too hard,” Falcon replied. “We can’t use the rooftops anymore. There’s no time to try an end-around. Beach-Head will be actively trying to find a way to fix us. Scrounge around here to see if we can immobilize Snake-Eyes’ leg and rig up a litter. Jaye, you pair off with Big Ben on point. Mutt will help me with Snakes. Zap, you and Rock & Roll will spell us after a block and we’ll cover the rear in your place. We have three minutes to dig around and then we have to move out!”

 

***

 

The climb up to the roof was difficult for Beach-Head and Crater. They took the same busted-open skylight that Mutt had led Big Ben, Zap and Rock & Roll through. Once they wriggled through the small opening, Beach-Head took a look around.

 

“Damn, they were crafty,” Beach-Head said to Crater, who was nodding in agreement. “They used the smoke to mask their change in direction, and they went up rather than through the buildings at ground level like I had suspected. That damn Green Beret outfoxed me!”

 

Crater raised a set of binoculars to his eyes and scanned the road network from the roof they occupied. He followed the straight roads in a systematic pattern, until he noticed Falcon and Mutt hauling the black-garbed figure of Snake-Eyes one block north. “Beach-Head, I’ve got them on the ground one block north heading for grid Alfa-Fourteen. It looks like they’re carrying Snake-Eyes, which is bound to be slowing them down. Let’s get after them!”

 

Beach-Head nodded and waved his hand toward the skylight. Picking up the TDC, he called the two remaining fire teams and ordered them to drop everything and run for the same grid section.

 

***

 

“Stop here!” Falcon ordered Mutt as the two of them tried to manhandle Snake-Eyes. He remained still, feigning his injury silently. Falcon reached under his BDU tunic and unclipped his web belt. “Mutt, take off your web belt too. If we can rig a harness to our LBE, we can move Snakes!”

 

Both Joes slipped the web belts off their waists, cinching tight some draw straps on the waistbands of their BDU pants afterwards. Fashioning each belt into a loop, they wrapped the belts around Snake-Eyes’ legs, and proceeded to strap him to their LBE rigs.

 

“Hang onto the LBE straps,” Falcon told Snake-Eyes. “Mutt, we’re going to have to run for it. Judging by the footfall sounds, I think OPFOR is running to catch up with us! We need to beat feet!”

 

***

 

“The last teams aren’t close enough to get into a prepared position!” Switchblade reported, holding up his TDC. We have to run them down ourselves!”

 

“Then run faster and prod on those scumbags behind you!” Beach-Head yelled back, waving frantically at Stalker on the opposite side of the street to pick up the pace. “The Joe that takes out Snake-Eyes will get a seven-day liberty in Bahrain and I will personally drive the winner there!”

 

***

 

“The tower is north and east of us in the middle of the park,” Falcon said to Mutt, as the men sprinted down the street, their improvised rig keeping Snake-Eyes off the ground and distributing his weight on both Joes’ shoulders. Staying in the middle of the street, the running pair passed Big Ben and Lady Jaye. Zap and Rock & Roll were also speeding up, trying to ditch anything that could lighten their loads along the way.

 

“The LZ is over there!” Falcon yelled, pointing at the squat, white-painted observer-controller’s tower. “Delay the OPFOR, Big Ben!”

 

The pursuing Joes were already at a dead run, with Beach-Head at the head of the group, urging them on. “Let’s go, ladies! I’d rather be chasing those Joes with your grandmothers behind me!”

 

Big Ben and Rock & Roll whirled around with their machine guns, firing a hail of paint bullets into the OPFOR Joes. Many of them stumbled or dove sideways into cover. Finding an overturned jeep near a crumbling curb, Big Ben and Rock & Roll moved behind it to make their stand.

 

“Shit! Grab cover!” Beach-Head yelled as one of the paint rounds clipped his leg and he had to play dead right where he was hit. “Crater, take over the pursuit!”

 

Crater raised his TDC as return fire came from Switchblade, Repeater, Wreckage, Saber-tooth and Claymore. “Crater calling Low-Light, please tell me you’re in sight of the park.”

 

Low-Light’s calm and quiet voice came over the TDC two-way radio channel. “We’re in sight of it now. I have a bead on Zap and Lady Jaye but Snakes is being carried behind some trees.”

 

“Hit any of them you can!” Crater ordered. “Make them double back to help!”

 

Lady Jaye zigzagged across an area of the park dotted with dry desert grasses when she felt a stinging sensation in the small of her back. Reaching around to feel the folds of her uniform for a moment, when she brought her hand back it was covered in red paint. “Son of a bitch,” she cursed, dropping to her knees and lying face down on the warm sand.

 

“Jaye is down!” Zap cried out, turning to see if he could shoot back at the sniper. “We need to recover her!”

 

“The mission comes first, Zap!” Falcon yelled back. “Protect Lady Jaye and wait for Big Ben and Rock & Roll to move her. We have to deliver this package to win!” Turning to Mutt and Snake-Eyes, Falcon hissed, “It’s a tough decision to make, but we can’t afford to let them get you, Snake-Eyes. The others still have a fighting chance.”

 

“We never leave our own behind, Falcon,” Mutt insisted, slapping the quick release on his LBE and letting it fall off his shoulders, leaving Falcon to bear all of Snake-Eyes’ weight. He loaded a fresh magazine into his rifle and charged it by working the bolt handle. “We all go home or nobody goes home!”

 

“The shit’s hit the fan, old boy,” Big Ben said with a smile to Rock & Roll, as their machine guns chattered away, hurling streams of paint ammo at the OPFOR Joes. “We’d best tuck in our bollocks and bug out of ‘ere.”

 

“I’m out,” Rock & Roll replied tersely, kicking a pile of spent belt links aside and dropping his M-60. Pulling out his Beretta sidearm, he loaded it and gazed at Big Ben. “Now is as good a time as any. Shall we hit the bricks?”

 

Big Ben fired off the remaining rounds of his last belt, flashing a satisfied grin when Big Brawler acted out a scream and skidded to a stop when he took at least five rounds which covered him from head to toe in red paint. Drawing a 9mm Browning Hi-Power, Bennett loaded the pistol and worked the slide back. “Let’s run for it, surfer-boy!”

 

Big Ben and Rock & Roll sprinted northeast towards the O/C tower as a hail of paint rounds kicked up dust and splattered at their heels.

 

Mutt skidded to a halt and dropped to his belly when he reached Lady Jaye’s outstretched body. Zap wasn’t close enough to cover them, but was punching away with his M-16A3 rifle, trying to find where Low-Light had sniped at them from.

 

One of Low-Light’s paint rounds burst on the sand inches from Jaye and Mutt’s faces. He brushed the sand and sticky liquid away, reaching for Jaye’s simulated wound. “She’s got a back-breaker, Zap! We need to move her out now!”

 

“Okay, compadre, I’m coming!” Zap got to his knees and rolled to his side just as Low-Light tried to hit him with a shot from his concealed position. “Madre de Dios! That was too close for comfort!”

 

***

 

Low-Light keyed his TDC and motioned for the rest of his fire team to ready themselves to charge. “Crater, this is Low-Light. They’re spread out and one of them is down. Let’s all charge now and catch them in a pincers.”

 

Crater fired off a three round burst from his M-16A3 and crouched behind some masonry rubble as he responded. “Okay, Low-Light, we’re going in hard! Yo, Joe!”

 

***

 

Falcon half walked and half ran to the observer-controller tower and banged on the thin aluminum door. Flint stepped out from the enclosure and patted Snake-Eyes on the shoulder. Snakes immediately got to his feet and began untangling himself from the LBE web belts.

 

“Call a knock it off, Flint!” Falcon shouted. “I’ve achieved the objective!”

 

Flint looked out over the park, where the battle was raging and the OPFOR Joes had begun to charge from several directions at once. “I want to see if your team makes it to the LZ first.”

 

“Wait a minute!” Falcon protested. “That wasn’t the rules of the exercise!”

 

“You said it yourself, Falcon,” Flint replied coolly. “You were focused on the mission above all. You may have won the objective, but Lady Jaye is down and the rest are almost out of ammo and in danger of being overrun. You’ll lose your whole team in order to win. One of your own even disregarded your orders to go help his comrade. Can you stomach all that?”

 

“What I can’t stomach ...,” Falcon said, raising his voice over the distant firing of paint rounds. “What I can’t stomach is that some cocky warrant officer sonofabitch is trying to prove something at the cost of my team! This here ...” Falcon swung his hand across the training area. “... This is just a fucking game to see if we can handle going out into the war! We don’t have time to play any more fucking games! Knock the god-damn exercise off so we can do what we came here to do!”

 

“Falcon,” Flint said with a metered tone. “You need to realize that this exercise isn’t just about winning or losing, or a dry run of your objective. It’s also to make sure the team can handle your leadership and that you can handle leading them. They have to know the risks you’re asking them to take and be willing to take them for you. There’s a trust factor that we have to know is present so that we’re not bringing home Joes in body bags. As they say at Navy BUD/S, ‘There is never a bad boat crew; there are only bad leaders.’ I’m not sure I see you being the kind of leader the mission needs.”

 

“You’ve got to be shitting me, Flint!” Falcon yelled, enraged. “Tomahawk is sending us into enemy territory in a few hours and you call my abilities into question now? My brother would kick your smug ass right here and now if he saw this going on! He’s been riding me all my life to be a good soldier!”

 

Falcon snatched up his assault rifle, loading the last magazine in his ammo bandoleer into it and cocking it for battle. “Objective accomplished, SIR! I’m going back to win the battle for you!” With that angry statement, Falcon leaped off the O/C tower’s steps and charged back into the fray.

 

***

 

Big Ben and Rock & Roll skidded to a stop, hitting the uneven sandy ground on their bellies within feet of where Lady Jaye was laying, cursing herself for getting hit in the back, although the injury was simulated.

 

Mutt and Zap were low-crawling to cover the distance between them and Jaye, trying to conserve ammo while firing at the charging OPFOR Joes and hoping for a lucky shot at Low-Light’s sniping position somewhere along the edge of the small park.

 

“Son of a bitch!” Zap swore, tossing the last magazine of spent 5.56mm training rounds aside and slamming a 40mm training grenade into his M-203 launcher with a hollow clunk. “I’m out of rifle ammo! Get to Lady Jaye, Mutt, while I cover you with the blooper!”

 

Mutt went from a low belly-crawl to his hands and knees, pushing his own rifle across the sand as quickly as he could manage. Behind him, the soft blooping sound of the M-203 came from where Zap was suppressing the charge of Beach-Head’s unit. One of Low-Light’s paint rounds struck home, hitting Zap right over the lip of his Fritz helmet and splattering red paint all over his face. The anti-armor specialist pounded a fist into the sand and laid his head down, uttering a muffled “Shit”.

 

Mutt glanced back to see Zap face-down in the sand. “Dammit, that sniper took Zap out!” Watch yourselves!”

 

Since Jaye was simulating a bullet wound in the spinal column or back, she had to make it difficult for the others to move her. When Big Ben tried to manipulate her legs and Rock & Roll tried reaching under her arms, she let out a fake cry of agony, and the men set her back down.

 

“We’ve got to evacuate her to the dustoff,” Rock & Roll insisted. “We don’t leave our own behind.”

 

Big Ben nodded. “We’ve very little to immobilize her. But if we can tie the empty rifles to either side of her spine with the remains of our LBE webbing straps, we just might be able to hump her out while Mutt drags Zap’s body over to the tower. The poor bugger looks like he took it in the head. He’s a goner.”

 

Rock & Roll arranged Jaye’s empty rifle and Big Ben’s spent MAG-58 like two poles for a makeshift litter and set two LBE straps across them. Very gently, Big Ben rolled Jaye over the weapons and buckled the LBE straps tightly around her, letting the guns serve as makeshift splints to keep her back straight. As Big Ben was tying Jaye off, Rock & Roll fired both their Berettas at the charging Joes, hitting Claymore square in the chest and taking out limbs on both Crater and Switchblade.

 

“She’s rigged up, Rock & Roll!” Big Ben yelled. “Time to go, mate!” Both Joes took up either end of Jaye’s body and hauled her up. “Mutt, cover us! We’re moving out!”

 

Mutt fired the last rounds he had in his assault rifle and pitched it aside angrily, drawing his Beretta. He ran back to Zap, who was lying still and playing dead from his head wound. The K-9 handler hoisted the ‘corpse’ over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and ran towards the tower as fast as his legs could carry him.

 

Falcon skidded to a stop beside Mutt and leveled his weapon. “The package is safe. Get the hell back to the dustoff!” As rounds from the OPFOR positions kicked up paint and sand at Falcon’s feet, he stood his ground and kept firing so that his teammates could get to safety.

 

Before Big Ben and Rock & Roll could get Jaye to the tower, the both of them were hit by single shots to the lower back from where Low-Light was stalking them. At the same moment, a loud horn blew from the observer/controller tower, and Flint’s voice came over a loudspeaker and all the TDC walkie-talkie units. “Attention, all Joes. Knock it off! The exercise is concluded.”

 

The weapons fire died immediately and many Joes that were in hiding places came out to make their way to the O/C tower. Falcon allowed his shoulders to slump weakly and let his empty rifle fall from his fingers to the ground with a clatter.

 

After a few moments, Falcon’s team regrouped in a semi-circle around Flint, who had begun lecturing them about Mutt’s questioning Falcon’s orders and how disappointed he was in their performance, despite winning the day as far as the rules of engagement were concerned.

 

“... The war doesn’t stop when the package reaches its dustoff!” Flint yelled, loud enough for all six to hear. “Lady Jaye could have died in the time it took for you all to decide on a course of action! You’re pathetic! I don’t give any of you a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving Baghdad!”

 

Falcon stormed up to Flint, and took a surprise swing at the Warrant Officer, putting him into the sand. “You smug sonofabitch! You already lectured me on leadership during this exercise. They all did the right thing!”

 

Flint rubbed his jaw and looked up at Falcon from the ground. “I’m going to forget you just did that...”

 

Lady Jaye strode over to where Flint lay, angrily kicking him in the ribs. “Then don’t you fucking forget that, Flint! We all knew the risks we’re taking tomorrow. And we all promised each other that we’d take a bullet for one another to see the mission through. Do you want to know who it was that said he would be the cover man if anything went wrong?” Jaye cocked her head to indicate Falcon. “That’s right. Your so-called inadequate leader was willing to take a bullet for any or all of us and it was part of our team’s plan for him to do so. So get off your fucking high horse, Flint, or we’re going to Tomahawk and insisting that we’re the team to go downrange and telling him about your mismanagement of the exercise!”

 

“What the fuck is going on around here?” Beach-Head swore as he observed the commotion from a distance and sprinted over to break things up. “What is your major malfunction to be beating Flint to hell? I’m going to tear you people new assholes one by one!”

 

Flint coughed a moment and then got back on his feet. “It’s okay, Beach-Head. Stand down, Sergeant Major.” The warrant officer and Joe Team operations planner located his clipboard and picked it up from the sand. “The team is ready. I couldn’t ask for a better display of teamwork and cohesion under the circumstances of the exercise. Good luck to all of you. I hope you all come back in one piece.”


	15. Sally Forth Unto The Breach - And Bring Hades on Thine Enemy

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Twelve

Sally forth unto the breech... and bring Hades upon thy enemy!

 

***

 

G.I. Joe Compound-Dining Hall

King Khalid Military City

23 July, 2002

1700 hours local time

 

Many of the Joes and green shirts not pulling specific duties around the compound had gathered in the company-sized dining hall for the dinner hour. Queued up on the chow line, or seated at long tables in the cavernous area, the team members were still jovial and full of energy like they were college kids on Spring Break.

 

The usual meal time shouting came from the kitchen area as ‘Cookie’, the Joes’ resident mess operations chief, needled his cooks and cook’s assistants to keep up the tempo needed to put hundreds of hot meals into the mouths of the hungry troopers.

 

Sergeant Christine Jamison, codename Tailwind, had just finished putting her Tracer TUAV system through a comprehensive systems test, which also involved demonstrating to General Tomahawk how to disassemble the small drone’s avionics and payload modules and reassemble them. Although the activity was a mere exercise to her, she seemed to have impressed the general with how well she was able to work on the unmanned aerial vehicle systems single-handedly.

 

Joining the chow line after her stomach growled loud enough to alert half the base, Tailwind dragged her tray along the polished stainless steel counter and accepted a salad of mixed greens, Chicken Marsala with steamed vegetables, dinner rolls and a small piece of carrot cake. To the main meal, she added a steaming mug of coffee with cream and sugar.

 

Joes came and went as they finished their meals, but Tailwind found herself walking right up to where Flint sat among a number of empty seats. The warrant officer still clutched at his ribs where he took the hefty kick courtesy of Lady Jaye with one hand and thoughtfully played with his food using the other.

 

Tailwind stood across the table from Flint, softly clearing her throat to get his attention. When he didn’t look up, she set her tray down and greeted him. “Good evening, Flint. Do you mind if I sit here, sir?”

 

Flint nodded, never taking his eyes off the metal compartmented food tray and his meal. “Feel free, Sergeant Jamison. I’m not going to be very good company, though.”

 

“You do look like hell, sir,” Tailwind observed. “Did you get hurt during the FTX this morning?”

 

Flint raised his eyes and found himself staring right into Tailwind’s twin pools of deep, thoughtful hazel-brown. She was regarding him closely, studying the warrant officer. “Yes, I did. It still smarts, too... quite an unexpected mishap.”

 

Tailwind’s eyes turned from intense to soft and sympathetic. “I’m sorry to hear that. I guess since Lady Jaye is taking off for a mission, you’ll be missing your usual dinner companion, eh?”

 

Flint smiled with a boyish lop-sided grin. “Since she had something to do with these bruised ribs, I’m not missing her that much. But thanks for noticing.”

 

As Flint and Tailwind traded small talk over their meals, an excited Switchblade rushed over to the table and set his tray down next to Tailwind’s. “Good evening, Flint and Tailwind,” the young paratrooper said. Turning specifically to Tailwind, Switchblade added, “I believe I need to cash in an IOU with you, Sergeant Jamison. You promised me a dinner date when we left Tampa.”

 

Flint had nearly finished his food by the time Switchblade arrived, and the warrant officer sized up the two young soldiers together. He reached for his waist, as if the TDC he wore on his belt was silently vibrating, summoning him someplace. “Duty calls, troops. Please excuse me.”

 

In unison, Tailwind and Switchblade replied, “Good evening, sir,” as Flint stood up to leave. Feeling the sharp pain again in his ribs, Flint slowly walked out of the dining hall with a hand pressed against his side.

 

Switchblade settled into his chair next to Tailwind and began to pick at his dinner selection. “Did I interrupt something, Sarge?” he asked, noticing that Tailwind’s eyes followed Flint out of the mess hall. “Tailwind?” Switchblade asked again, fighting the urge to wave a hand in front of her eyes.

 

A heartbeat’s pause passed before Tailwind responded. She shook her head and looked in Switchblade’s direction. “I’m sorry. No, you didn’t interrupt anything important. I must be more tired than I thought.”

 

“We’re all busy these days,” Switchblade said, trying to sound oblivious to how Tailwind had been focusing on Flint. “I’ve been assigned to the new Sky Patrol team. We’re going to train as an airmobile assault force to fulfill some over-the-border missions. Soon as I get my final medical clearance over those pesky injuries from Tampa, I have to get some practice jumps in. It’s really exciting!”

 

“Uh huh,” Tailwind mumbled. “That’s great to hear.”

 

“You don’t sound that happy,” Switchblade observed, his tone growing concerned. “Are you sure everything is alright, Sarge?”

 

“I’m fine, Corporal Roberts,” Jamison insisted. “I just have other things on my mind and I apologize. Maybe I should give you a rain check.” She decided to try a little white lie to ease Switchblade off. “I have to run through a launch drill tonight and get some new orders myself. I didn’t mean to seem so distant.”

 

Switchblade relaxed and set himself to work on hacking up a somewhat tough piece of Chicken Marsala. “Sooner or later, I’m going to back you into a corner and you’ll have no excuse not to go out with me. I don’t give up so easily.”

 

“I like your tenacity,” Tailwind replied with a grin, gathering up her dinner scraps. “I owe you the mess hall once again.”

 

Switchblade shook his head in confusion as he watched Tailwind silently depart. “Women,” he mumbled quietly. She would certainly be a challenge.

 

***

 

Later in the evening:

 

Flint kicked back at the small desk provided in his quarters, resting his combat boots on the light steel surface with a metallic clank. He wasn’t in the mood to review paperwork, but out of bad habit, he picked up a manila folder with some copies of map sections and typed intelligence reports.

 

The mental diversion the reports provided didn’t last very long, and the warrant officer got to his feet, thinking a walk might help clear the confused thoughts in his head. Leaving his quarters, he trudged slowly through the barracks wondering if he would run into Lady Jaye before she had to join Falcon’s team at Hafr-al-Batin to kick off their mission.

 

Reaching the barracks complex’s main entry, Flint stepped outside to a cool breeze as the desert sun dipped below the horizon. Tailwind rounded the corner of the building, her own mind someplace distant, when she careened right into Flint.

 

Flint’s hands instinctively went to the young UAV pilot’s shoulders, much like he might do to support Lady Jaye had she been the one to bump into him. However, his touch was met with a surprised guttural sound.

 

“Flint! Sir, I’m sorry to run into you like that!” Tailwind exclaimed, separating herself from his touch. Her face was flushed with embarrassment. “Pardon me, sir.”

 

“No, no, it’s okay,” Flint replied calmly, bringing his arms to his sides. “My bruised ribs didn’t feel a thing.”

 

Tailwind and Flint had a moment of awkward silence between them when a familiar voice called out from a few yards away. “Flint! Hey, Flint!” Lady Jaye was making her way to the barracks with a large rucksack and AK-74 assault rifle slung over her shoulder.

 

“Hello, Lady Jaye,” Flint said hesitantly, as the intelligence specialist came to a stop and set her equipment down. She stared suspiciously at Tailwind without speaking.

 

“Do you mind if we talk, Flint?” Jaye finally uttered after a pregnant pause. “We should discuss what happened earlier on the range.”

 

“By all means,” Flint replied, sweeping a hand towards the barracks entrance and holding the door open. “Tailwind; you can carry on, Sergeant.”

 

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Jamison acknowledged, walking through the door and disappearing into the barracks.

 

Lady Jaye elbowed Flint, taking care to jab him in the arm because of his rib injury. “I swear, Dashiell, if it walks, has two tits and a heartbeat, you’ll drool over it like a lost puppy dog.”

 

Flint twisted his face into an annoyed expression while rubbing the spot where Jaye landed her jab. “Are you getting jealous, Alison? Weren’t you looking for me for something specific? I thought you had a mission assignment.”

 

Jaye put her hands on her hips and planted her feet firmly in the sand, blocking the way to the barracks. “I WAS coming over to apologize about kicking you in the ribs. You shouldn’t have been giving Falcon the business during that exercise. But seeing your cavalier behavior just now, I’m thinking twice about it.”

 

“You mean Tailwind?” Flint asked. “You should damn well know I have no interest in her. We’ve been together too long for me to ruin...”

 

Jaye raised her hand to interrupt Flint. “Spare me your standard lines. They won’t placate me anymore. I see how she looks at you, and you are just eating it up. You’re hardly warning her off or even making the attempt.” The muscles of Jaye’s face tensed as she fought back the urge to get angry. Turning on her heel, she hoped putting Flint out of her view would help ease her annoyance at him. “I’m going to join Falcon for the final pre-mission brief. Hopefully, I’ll see you after the operation is over.”

 

Flint couldn’t find his voice to reply as Lady Jaye stormed away, sweeping up her rucksack and rifle as she left him behind. After she was gone, he hung his head dejectedly and said simply, “Aw, shit.”

 

***

 

Hafr-al-Batin Air Base, Saudi Arabia

24 July, 2002

0015 hours local time

 

The Air Force crew of “Sally the Stripper” calmly walked around their aircraft doing their preflight inspection while the aircraft generating flight at Hafr-al-Batin checked the heavy bomber’s eight jet engines over and fitted her out for her special delivery mission.

 

Sally was a B-52H with a few thousand hours of combat flight time accrued on her original airframe. She had been built for duty with the Strategic Air Command in the early 1960’s as one of a batch of a hundred and two new-build aircraft in the last configuration Boeing was to produce. Upgrades in the seventies and eighties were designed to prolong Sally’s service life with SAC and later Air Combat Command, which had included up-rated engines and installation of modernized radar, weapons delivery and navigation systems.

 

For the bomber’s mission as the Joes’ delivery aircraft to Baghdad, the forward of two primary bomb bays was being temporarily sealed and pressurized, with troop seats and cargo bins installed inside for the team. The rear bomb bay was fitted with a rack that held the re-marked Falcon gliders in place for the team to strap into before reaching the DZ. The rack would be lowered out the bomb bay doors and into the fast-moving slipstream around the airplane when the team was ready to deploy.

 

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Grant, Sally’s aircraft commander, was a longtime nuclear deterrent pilot who had logged thousands of flight hours himself with SAC in the 80’s and on into the 90’s. He had begun his Air Force career fresh out of the Academy as a Second Lieutenant and tactical navigator officer on B-52’s while waiting for a pilot slot to open up. By 1987, he was a Captain and had begun flying the BUFF (‘Big Ugly Fat Fucker’-pilot’s slang for the B-52) with the 319th Bomb Wing based out of Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota.

 

When the overly-expensive B-1 and B-2 bomber programs fizzled and were cut short by Congressional budget-slashing, the B-52’s mission as a conventional bomber and multi-purpose platform was revived, and short-term, low-cost programs kept the BUFF fleet flying into the new millennium. Veteran pilots like Grant and his colleagues who chose to stay in the B-52 pipeline began to rapidly advance in grade as the older wing and group commanders retired and moved on with their own careers.

 

Now, LTCOL Grant was the Executive Officer of the 2nd Bomb Wing, based at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, and often took on special missions personally as a means to lead the wing by example. He had surrounded himself with the best air crewmen the wing had to offer, and as a team, Sally’s flight crew was ready to take on their job with gusto.

 

As the cluster of Air Force bomber crewmen finished looking Sally over, Falcon and his team entered the large hangar. A small, gas-powered forklift raised the modified Falcon gliders up into Sally’s aft bomb bay where some ground crew airmen affixed them to the deployment rack.

 

“Wow, that is one bucket of bolts we’re flying into combat with,” Rock & Roll commented with a grin, resting his Cobra-produced RPK-74 squad automatic weapon on his shoulder and straightening the camouflage fatigues that were the Desert Scorpions’ standard issue.

 

“I wouldn’t poke fun at Sally,” Technical Sergeant Jake Thomas, Sally’s crew chief, said from behind the sextet of Joes. “We put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into keeping her the pride of the 2nd Bomb Wing. She’s never failed us yet.”

 

“Who are we to talk down about our ride into Indian country?” Falcon said, shoving Rock & Roll towards a scaffold ladder that led into the glider bay and pressing his RPK-74 into his hands. “Let’s get aboard and give the gliders a quick check before take-off.”

 

***

 

0130 hours, local time

 

The moon had crossed mostly over the night sky and the sun was waiting in the wings to make its appearance some four hours in the future, as the B-52H’s of the 2nd Bomb Wing cruised high over the battle lines along the Saudi-Iraqi frontier area. The wing commander broadcast the inbound group’s final inter-plane transmission, which was the go order to commence their operation.

 

“Boxcar Lead to all Boxcar sections,” the wing commander said over the radios. “Commence mission profile ‘Rolling Thunder’. All aircraft are to follow radio silence procedures upon crossing the lines. Contact AWACS upon clearing the target waypoint for return vectors.”

 

Sally the Stripper broke formation to climb slightly higher while the other bombers broke off into smaller ‘packages’ to attack assigned targets. The first targets were main supply routes close to the border, and the loud WHOOMP of five hundred and thousand-pound bombs detonating over them echoed all the way up to Sally’s flight level.

 

“That was fast,” Lady Jaye said in a raised voice, trying to speak over the whine of the eight turbojet engines that propelled Sally into the fray. “Talk about a big diversion just for the sake of six little Joes.”

 

“The bombing mission was part of the overall strategy, Jaye,” Falcon replied. “We just happen to be riding shotgun.”

 

TSgt. Thomas, who was riding in the converted bomb bay within arm’s reach of a small bulkhead panel that led to the cockpit area, listened to an intercom headset while a loadmaster “borrowed” from a C-130 unit snoozed in the seat next to him.

 

The loadmaster’s job was to make sure everyone was safely strapped into their emergency egress parachutes and then into the gliders themselves. He was also to make sure that the special containers that protected their weapons and gear were tightly bound to the Joes’ drogue lines and could be quick-released before landing. Both the crew chief and loadmaster had to operate the deployment rack, which lowered the compacted gliders and dropped them from the bomber.

 

While the ride in Sally’s bomb bay was fairly smooth, the lack of sound deadening materials and inner wall panels typical of commercial aircraft made the whole space noisy. Jaye leaned close to Falcon again and asked, “What about ADA? Wouldn’t they be trying to lay a bunch of surface-to-air missiles on us? Or at least filling the sky with lead from mobile ASP emplacements?”

 

“We’re still pretty high, most likely out of the range of an ASP or zoo-twenty-three,” TSgt. Thomas replied from his place a few feet away. “Most enemy divisional and some of their corps air defense units never field much more than SHORAD systems, to provide force protection against low-level fighter-bombers and helicopters. For big high-flying babies like Sally, they have to rely on their fixed radars and Russian-designed defensive SAM fire chains. But we also use an ECM suite that aids in keeping the radars from sniffing at us too closely. They get an electronic shadow that makes us look like we’re miles away from our actual position.”

 

Just as Thomas was sharing his explanation, the entire airframe shuddered and rattled from vibrations in the outside air. Thomas raised his headset to an ear and called out to the group, “It’s copasetic, troops. The colonel is reporting rough air at our altitude. There’s no flak or missiles up here.”

 

At a predetermined point along Boxcar One’s flight path, LTCOL Grant broke radio silence, for the benefit of any Iraqi SIGINT units operating ‘Big Ears’ intercept stations and following the bombing missions. “Boxcar One to Lead. We have a navigation system malfunction. Suspect flight path is off profile. Visibility is uncertain due to cloud concentration. We’re going to try to get an old fashioned fix. Boxcar One out.”

 

***

 

Iraqi Air Defense Command Center

“Alfa” Fire Chain

Somewhere in Southeastern Iraq

 

“Sector alert!” an Iraqi radar intercept controller called out. “An American bomber has broken formation and is traveling northwest!”

 

The controller’s senior officer, an Iraqi Air Force Major, studied the radar screen. “Their main force cannot be engaged by our fighters and SAM sites due to a heavy fighter screen and a number of ‘Wild Weasel’ defense-suppression sorties which have disabled parts of the fire chain and GCI radars in sectors Six and Seven. However, we must defend the capital from this stray bomber! Alert the Cobra Fifteenth Regiment and send a teletype warning to the Cobra garrison at Camp Al-Shu’a. The bomber’s anticipated course brings it close to the training camp and special project site there and the capital air bases.”

 

Command center radio and teletype operators sprung into action, burning up the airwaves and telephone lines to Baghdad, spreading the alert of the encroaching bomber. The center’s SIGINT team had picked up on the navigation malfunction call and reported it as well.

 

The next higher level of command ordered a sector scramble of two older Dassault Mirage fighters from Baghdad’s Rasheed Air Base to chase the bomber, and the Cobra 15th Regiment’s personnel manned their weapons. Although the Cobras had significant air power that it could muster, much of it was tied down at airfields in northern Iraq, out of the range of the daring American night bombers and their gutsy fighter CAP. The overall skill of the Iraqi pilots was suspect when it came to night operations. Despite support by skilled radar operators and air controllers at the ground control-intercept (GCI) command posts, Iraqi aviators had already caused several friendly fire incidents and mid-air crashes when operating in joint formations with the advanced Cobra combat planes. The Cobra officers advising the GCI network had decided the ‘cannon fodder’ Iraqi aircrews were best to send up for what they deemed a simple intercept.

 

The First Battalion of the 15th Regiment was outfitted with three light batteries of ASP 35mm guns and a command post that used optronic detection and ranging equipment, which began to search the sky from their laagers and dispersal sites along the Tigris River. The similarly-equipped Second Battalion was closer to the city of Baghdad and also went on immediate alert. The majority of the battalion personnel were Cobra unit leaders and Flak-Vipers, supported by local ordnance troops that operated the ammo dumps.

 

Headquarters and Service Battery of the 15th Regiment and its Third Battalion, both units manned by Cobra advisors and Iraqi Army specialist troops, were strung out between the two light battalions, using more powerful mobile radars to sweep the air battle space overhead. The Third Battalion’s mobile ZSU-23-4 ‘Shilka’ and 2S19 ‘Tunguska’ gun platforms represented the regiment’s most flexible defensive equipment. Fourth Battalion of the 15th was a jointly-manned ordnance trials unit, outfitted with older ZSU-57-2 57mm mobile guns of Soviet manufacture and based with the 1st Battalion. It was involved in the testing of experimental rocket-assisted ammunition to improve the older reserve gun’s lethality, along with advanced technology kinetic-energy darts that had much longer range than the old 57mm ammunition.

 

The 15th Regiment implemented its standard air defense plan, anticipating the bomber to drop below the low-hanging clouds to seek out a ground reference point like the Tigris River and get its bearings. When the bomber came down to address its navigation problem, it would be easy prey for the ASP guns and mobilized Iraqi 23mm, 30mm and 57mm guns and their more lethal munitions. The battalions were lined up along the suspected flight path of the bomber to have the best possible chance of detecting and engaging the aircraft.

 

***

 

High above southeastern Iraq

0235 hours, local time

 

TSgt. Thomas listened intently to some instructions from Sally the Stripper’s cockpit and then shook the plane’s loadmaster awake. “Okay, people, it’s time to go. Sally’s been painted by a sector command post, and the AWACS over the border alerted us on the secure data link that we have company coming with fangs bared. The guys on the flight deck are turning us around, but we’re right where we need to be, about thirty miles southeast of the Cobra garrison on the Intel maps. We have ten minutes to get you off the plane, so Sally can scoot back to the fighter CAP and get home safely.”

 

Falcon turned to Lady Jaye as he unbuckled his seat belt and stood up. “Well, this is it. You ready to hit the wild blue?”

 

Jaye stretched and rose to her feet. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Guess we can’t change our minds anymore.”

 

The other Joes solemnly got to their feet and moved into the aft bomb bay, where the loadmaster began strapping them into their glider assemblies and parachutes. The modified Falcon gliders had been shrouded in the azure blue coverings that matched Cobra’s air assault units’ Viper gliders. They were further modified with spring-loaded and hinged structural frames, which were folded into sections before being loaded onto the drop rack.

 

Each Joe knew that they would have to essentially skydive for two to four minutes in order to freefall from their deployment altitude of seven thousand feet (which was under the cloud ceiling and in range of the 15th Regiment’s weapons) to about two thousand feet where the gliders would be unfolded automatically and they could navigate to their landing zone, gliding over the thirty miles between the DZ and LZ.

 

It had taken almost the full ten minutes to get Falcon’s team strapped into their gliders and equipment. The interior lighting of the bomb bay switched from a normal level to the dull red glow of some jury-rigged drop warning lights.

 

“One minute to DZ!” TSgt. Thomas yelled, as the loadmaster flipped a switch on a handheld control box that opened the aft bomb bay doors. After sixty seconds passed, the dull red glow of the drop lamps changed to green and the loadmaster pressed a button which lowered the rack outside the bomber. One by one, the Joes fell away from Sally’s belly, angling into a head first dive as they plummeted towards the ground. The night air over Iraq was colder than the Joes expected when the initial blasts of wind hit their faces outside the aircraft.

 

The required two minutes passed as the team dropped out of the sky, and the most dangerous phase of the insertion began. Each Joe had to check a wristwatch-sized altimeter to make sure they were close to two thousand feet, and when the feel was right, they had to pull on a quick-release lanyard which had been taped to their hands prior to leaving the plane. The lanyard would begin the sequence which would unfurl the gliders and once they caught some aerodynamic lift, the group would make their way to the LZ in a loose formation.

 

Falcon reached the right altitude first and yanked out his lanyard. The extruded aluminum frame elements and spring-loaded sections snapped into place with metallic clangs. First, the inner wing sections flipped up to either side, then the outer wing sections hinged outward. Finally, the vertical winglets flipped up from the outer wing sections and the glider began to generate its own lift.

 

Settling onto a northwesterly course, Falcon tried to look back and see how the others fared. All of the Joes on the team had expressed between themselves some apprehension about being dropped into battle with the modified but untested gliders. Miraculously, they all deployed their gliders and were able to cover the distance to the LZ without needing to break away and use their emergency parachutes.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, aboard “Sally the Stripper”

 

The whole airframe shook as salvoes of 35mm tracers whizzed by the low-flying bomber and exploded around it. Sally’s pilots worked feverishly to turn the plane back towards Saudi Arabia and attempted to climb back into the clouds to avoid the ASP-equipped First Battalion’s optronic gun directing unit.

 

TSgt. Thomas already reported that the Joes were deployed and the bomb bay had been sealed. Everyone in the cockpit cinched their seatbelts tighter and focused on getting their plane home.

 

LTCOL Grant handled the control yoke himself while the bomber’s ECM operator who sat behind them reported on the numerous air search and fire control radars piercing the skies to find them. The colonel swore as the Cobra gunners brought their fire in closer and closer as they got a better fix on Sally.

 

“God damn, these guys are too good!” Grant exclaimed. “Come on, Sally, stay together and get us home!”

 

“Did you think our luck on these special missions would hold forever, colonel?” the co-pilot asked jokingly, punching switches and nursing the eight throttle handles forward to increase Sally’s airspeed.

 

“Our survival has been based on skill, training, and our girl, Major,” Grant replied, patting the panel of gauges in front of him with his left hand. The bomber shook violently as advanced 57mm munitions exploded dangerously close by.

 

“Pilot from ECMO,” the ECM operator said over the intercom. “I have two K-Band air-to-air radars, weak strength but increasing. They must be those Iraqi interceptors AWACS warned us about.”

 

“ECMO from Pilot,” Grant replied. “Try a standard sweep with the jamming system. If you can wipe their radars, they’ll have to rely on GCI and we can steal a few seconds’ edge over their ability to respond.”

 

“Pilot from radar navigator, the aft 20mm guns are loaded and ready.” The radar navigator of the crew sat with the radio operator/navigator behind and one level below the main cockpit in a more cramped space right behind the bomber’s avionics bays. A rare breed in the B-52 community, tail gunner-qualified radar navigators only flew on critical missions because standard doctrine relied on fighter cover to protect the bombers instead of them protecting themselves with their tail guns. Most radar navigators had their hands full guiding the aircraft and operating the weapons delivery systems. Many of the surviving Buffs had their quad cal-50 or twin 20mm guns removed during refits, so Sally was nearly unique by virtue of retaining hers and that the guns were fully operational.

 

“Navigator from Pilot,” Grant snapped. “Send a text ‘SOS’ to the AWACS over the data link and give our predicament and present position. Everyone strap in tight and make sure Sergeant Thomas and that sleepy loadmaster are buckled in. We’ve got some rough jinking ahead! RADNAV, stand by those guns! I’m gonna try to climb Sally out of gun range!”

 

***

 

Aboard ‘Star’ Flight (Two Iraqi Mirage F-1 interceptors)

 

Major Massoud, one of Iraq’s best surviving fighter pilots, strained to see in the darkness around his aircraft while the ground-based intercept controllers worked to point him and his wingman, a rookie pilot named Lieutenant al-Shiraz, at Sally the Stripper.

 

“Roger that, sector command,” Massoud said over his radio, acknowledging a new course correction. “Star flight is turning east by southeast. No visual or close-range radar contacts yet.”

 

“They should be within ten miles of you, Star Lead,” the GCI controller reported in a miffed tone. “You should at least have a scanning radar fix on them!”

 

“Negative on the radar fix, ground,” Massoud replied. He keyed the inter-plane channel to raise his wingman. “Lieutenant al-Shiraz, do you have any contacts?”

 

Al-Shiraz replied to his commander in a shaky voice, as he struggled to maintain formation and to keep his eyes on his instruments. This intercept was only the lieutenant’s tenth night sortie outside of training. “Zero contacts, Major. But I’m starting to see anti-aircraft gun flashes at one o’clock.”

 

Major Massoud glanced to his right and noticed the flashes of the low-altitude fire as well. “Star Flight to GCI. We’re at Angels twenty and see flashes of ground fire through the clouds. Still negative contact on radar.”

 

“Damn it to hell!” the GCI operator cursed in exasperation. “You need to lose some altitude right now and get to Angels eleven! Target is less than three miles away! Activate your fire control radars now and prepare to engage!”

 

***

 

“Pilot from ECMO. We’ve smoked the interceptors’ radars and it looks like GCI is well confused. The Mirages are dropping from Angels twenty and have activated their fire control radars. They’re still over twenty miles from us!”

 

The smaller caliber fire waned when Sally pulled up into the clouds and the optronic gun directors on the ground could no longer track the big bomber. However, the radar-directed larger caliber guns still pierced the clouds with their deadly ordnance.

 

“How are we doing?” the copilot shouted to LTCOL Grant over the din of the engines and bursting shells. “I think we’ve ditched the little gunners that were defending Baghdad’s southern approach.”

 

“The optical stuff can’t find us up here in cloud soup,” Grant replied, jerking his control yoke in reaction to the bright flash of a 57mm shell exploding ahead of the cockpit glass. “But we still have the large caliber weapons and we’re inside the minimum engagement envelope for Iraqi SAMS along the southern fire chain. Make sure the RWR and threat receivers are all tuned in, Major.”

 

***

 

Iraqi Air Defense Command (GCI Sector Station)

 

“Still no contact with the bomber?” asked the senior control officer at the ground control intercept station. “All of the battalions of the Cobra 15th Regiment including a laager of the 2nd southeast of the city are reporting having engaged the aircraft and that it’s heading south at low to medium altitude!”

 

The night shift controller assigned to the intercept wiped beads of sweat from his forehead and swore to himself in Arabic while the GCI control officer leaned over his shoulder menacingly. “There must be some counter-measures in play, sir. Our long-range scanning radars lose out on the power-to-signal curve when targets are that far out. It makes us vulnerable to jamming or false readings. The fighter radars are of low-power, mainly due to age and old technology, but partly by design since the power output is reserved for the more critical engagement period and not broadband scanning.”

 

“Then why are the gunners on the ground still reporting tracking data?” the senior control officer asked.

 

“It’s a combination of many factors, sir,” the controller reported. “Under ECM conditions, range between radar emitter and target, scan area coverage and power output are the determining factors. The best possible chances lie with a radar system that scans a small piece of sky at a time at very high power, like the fire control radars of the 15th Regiment, and is in close proximity with the enemy during the engagement.”

 

After a breath, the controller continued. “The ground units have established a fix and are pointing their radars at it, but the ability to determine exact position is compromised with every maneuver and they have to search again to acquire it. Plus if we relied on their fix data, it would always be delayed so our interceptors would be chasing ghosts. The principle of intercepting a target is to predict where it will be and have the fighters meet it rather than have them react to every new move the enemy pilot makes and end up staying one step behind.”

 

“Then put our fighters right over the air defense regiment and have them hunt by eye!” the officer insisted. He knew the Cobra military advisor was around and reporting their performance directly to the General Staff, for which any measure of ineptitude would be harshly received.

 

“As you say, Major,” the controller replied, engaging his boom mike. “Star Flight, this is Sector Control. Proceed to Angels eight and attempt to gain visual contact on the bomber!”

 

***

 

“Our luck’s run out, Colonel!” the copilot yelled as a 57mm kinetic energy warhead lanced through the outer engine pod on Sally’s starboard side. Although it didn’t explode, the composite alloy dart tore through the thin aluminum engine housing and made a total mess of the working parts of the jet engines. “Pod Four has been smashed to bits! Engines seven and eight are total write offs! We have a fire in the engine nacelle!”

 

LTCOL Grant hauled back on the throttles for engines seven and eight and threw an emergency cutoff switch, which choked the fuel supply to the disabled engine pod. The onboard fire suppression system took care of the rest, dousing the engine flames with compressed Halon 1441 gas.

 

“ECMO! Report status of enemy fighters! Navigator! What is our exact position?” Grant yelled over the intercom as he and the copilot worked the plane’s trim tabs to keep the bomber in stable flight.

 

“Pilot from ECMO. The enemy fighters haven’t taken our bait. I have RWR warnings going off all over our defensive systems panel! We’re about to be jumped!”

 

“Pilot from Navigator. We are forty-five miles north of the battle lines and not quite under the friendly fighter umbrella. At reduced engine performance, we’ll need at least another twenty minutes to avoid the fighters and get past the frontier into the KKMC ADIZ.”

 

Grant brought Sally up out of the clouds and the glow of the moon illuminated the night sky. It didn’t take long for the copilot to spot two dark shapes silhouetted against the moon.

 

“Fighters! Enemy fighters!” the Major in the left seat of the cockpit exclaimed. “Oh, shit, Colonel! We’ve had it!”

 

***

 

Aboard the lead Mirage interceptor, Major Massoud saw the dark shape of the bomber in a slow turn. The dark smoke billowing out of the wingtip engine pod on the bomber’s right side was incentive enough to drive home an attack. “Star Lead to Sector Control, we have visual contact with the bomber above the cloud bank at Angels nine point five and nearing the Alfa fire chain! We’re engaging!”

 

Meanwhile, at the Alfa fire chain, the command post for an SA-8 SAM battery had received target data from the GCI sector control and was given clearance by their Cobra operations officer to launch immediately. A brace of four, long-range SA-8-M2’s leaped from the launch rails of the battery’s mobile erector vehicles.

 

***

 

“Missile warning!” the ECMO shouted from behind the pilots. “Four blips in boost phase! Acquisition profile says they’re SA-8-M2 fire-and-forget, radar-homing birds!”

 

“Jam their target sensors!” Grant replied from his seat, slamming the throttles on the six remaining engines fully forward and nosing Sally over into a dive to gain speed.

 

“I’m throwing noise all over the spectrum!” the ECMO replied. “Their fighters are maneuvering behind us for a tail aspect!”

 

The electric buzz of the tail guns firing changed the crescendo of battle sounds echoing through Sally’s airframe. “I’m keeping those fast movers honest!” yelled the radar navigator, peering through the tail gun camera at the dark shapes of the pair of Mirages forming up on Sally’s tail.

 

***

 

“Watch out, Major! There are SA-8’s in the air!” Lieutenant al-Shiraz yelled, hearing the tones from his Mirage’s radar warning threat receiver warble in the cockpit. “Don’t those armchair goats know we’re flying up here?”

 

“I don’t think the fire chain cares,” the Major responded. “The two of us are expendable if they can kill an American bomber! Watch your tail and don’t let the tail gun get you!”

 

“The missiles are in terminal phase!” al-Shiraz shouted over the radio, his voice turning more and more desperate. “Two have homed in on me!” The sounds of rattling metal filled the radio chatter as bullets from the M-61A1 tail gun ricocheted off of the Mirage’s flight surfaces. “I can’t get a firing solution! The tail gun is already hitting me!”

 

“Fire chaff countermeasures and tuck in closer to the bomber’s wings!” the Major called out, thinking quickly and advancing the throttle on his own plane to try using Sally as a mask for his own radar signature from the ground. If he was lucky and the timing was perfect, any SA-8-M2’s that sniffed at his tail would still end up hitting the much larger bomber while he dove away at the last possible second.

 

A quick scan outside the cockpit allowed the Major’s eyes to register the twinkle of al-Shiraz’s formation lights, the yellow-orange blasts of Sally’s 20mm tail gun and the tail fire of the rapidly approaching surface-to-air missiles. The airmen’s situation was dangerously bleak.

 

***

 

“The Mirages are closing in on our tail, big time!” the RADNAV reported while he trained the 20mm rotary gun along its limited traverse. He continued firing, spraying explosive rounds at the Mirage he had kept centered in his optical gun sights.

 

“Clear our tail!” LTCOL Grant called down from the cockpit. “ECMO, what’s going on with the SAM threat?”

 

“Pilot from ECMO, all four birds are now in terminal phase. They’ve acquired us and are homing. By my count, we’re going to get hit in sixty seconds if we’re not out of here sooner!”

 

The RADNAV yelped with glee when two of the SA-8 missiles slammed into the Mirage he was shooting at and the fighter burst into a large red-orange fireball. “Yahoo! One bandit is cleared from our tail, courtesy the enemy fire chain!” The explosion rocked the vibrating bomber from behind as the cockpit crew struggled to retain control.

 

“That’s great,” the copilot replied as he fought the control yoke and shook away the headache he was developing from the whine of the radar threat receivers. “But we’re nowhere near the safe zone yet. I hope one of this crew can speak Arabic...”

 

“Can it, Major, and keep this bird flying,” Grant snarled, wrestling his own control yoke against the shaking airplane. “We’ll make the safe zone!”

 

***

 

“Damn those desert dogs,” Major Massoud cursed as his wingman’s Mirage burst into flame and smoke off his right wing. Nursing his throttle once more to adjust his airspeed, Massoud muttered a brief prayer to Allah before taking a glance into his small rear-view mirror at the approaching pair of SA-8 missiles.

 

As the weapons leveled off directly behind the B-52 and his Mirage, Massoud realized he had done exactly what was expected of him as an expendable pilot. The GCI had used his radar signature to lead the SAM missiles right to the target for a hard kill.

 

The SA-8 missiles detonated in the Mirage’s single afterburning jet engine, causing the aircraft to tumble forward in space. The massive explosion in such close proximity to Sally the Stripper’s left main wing was sufficient to crack the lateral spar (an aluminum alloy beam that supports the wing roots) and broke an entire engine pod free from its nacelle, causing the jets to tumble away in flames.

 

***

 

0302 hours, local time

 

“We’re hit!” the copilot yelled, looking back from his side of the cockpit. “We’ve lost the left inner engine pod and the left wing is on fire!”

 

“I hear metal tearing sounds from the fuselage,” LTCOL Grant said, nodding his head in agreement. “Everyone prepare to punch out, I think we’ve lost the lateral or transverse wing spars!”

 

TSgt. Thomas and the loadmaster, riding in the bomb bay, ran to the aft section and strapped on a pair of JUMP jet packs. They both hoped the modified ejection seats fitted with surplus Joe JUMP packs in the cockpit would save the lives of the five men up front.

 

The loadmaster hauled down on the manual bomb bay door release, and when the aluminum panels fell away, the two men dropped into the slipstream and fired off the small liquid-propelled rockets.

 

In the cockpit, the pilot and copilot, ECMO, navigator and RADNAV had all kicked back their seats so that the control panels wouldn’t break their legs as the ejection seats fired. LTCOL Grant said a soft goodbye to the crew’s bomber and pulled on the Master Eject handle, between his legs.

 

Five square sections of fuselage blasted away from the bomber’s cockpit section, triggered by explosive bolts, as the five flight crewmen of Sally the Stripper launched from their places in their ejection seats. After the powerful seat rockets propelled each crewman about a thousand feet from the stricken and falling aircraft, the seats fell away to reveal the G.I. Joe JUMP jet packs, primed and ready to fire.

 

Riding on seven pairs of smoke plumes, the Air Force crewmen aimed for earth while they watched Sally the Stripper drop to about nine hundred feet above the desert and explode from the fuel tanks and onboard ordnance cooking off. Their ordeal had only begun, since they were about to touch down thirty miles behind enemy lines.

 

***

 

Camp Al-Shu’a

Cobra ‘Training Garrison’ southwest of Baghdad

0330 hours, local time

 

From the air and in the darkness of the cloudy night, Camp Al-Shu’a appeared to be like a postage stamp of light in the swirling shadows of the living desert. Roughly rectangular, the camp had a well-developed security perimeter, with sand berms, dragon’s teeth, razor wire and fencing surrounding the location, and there were guard towers with spotlights sited evenly around the fence line.

 

The garrison appeared to be divided into quadrants, with the northwest quadrant populated with tents and small, sandbagged wooden barracks structures. The southwest quadrant was dotted with stacks of construction materials, sections of large steel piping, and a variety of parked construction vehicles. The northeast quadrant had an open-air ammunition dump, with stacks of large crates and the forklifts and mobile cranes normally associated with an ammunition transfer point unit. The southeast quadrant was mainly undeveloped, although some site preparation had occurred, probably for installing utilities equipment. Dead center of the camp was a concrete structure that was only half-completed, and a broad trench was being dug due south from the center.

 

Falcon led the formation of gliders almost to the edge of the garrison, and then turned west, aiming his glider for the very edge of the spotlight coverage area outside the camp’s perimeter. One by one, the Joes banked in the same direction and the group touched down just within sight of a guard tower.

 

Atop the guard tower, a pair of yawning Desert Scorpions had been lazily passing the time until their shift was to end. Spotting the six gliders going to ground outside the fence line, bathed in the glow of the tower lights, the men snapped into action, swinging a smaller more powerful spotlight around and aiming the 250,000 candlepower beam where the Joes had set down and were discarding their gliders.

 

“Hold it right there!” shouted one of the tower guards through a megaphone. “Cease all activity, lay your weapons on the ground and stand by to be recognized!” The second guard had spoken into a walkie-talkie, reporting to the night watch commander about the glider-borne troops before training a pintle-mounted heavy machinegun on the Joes.

 

“Just play it cool and do what they say, everyone,” Falcon whispered, bending over to set his AK-74 on the sand at his feet.

 

Within moments, a Stinger jeep roared up to the LZ and squealed to a halt on a set of badly lubricated brakes. The driver and a machine gunner stayed with the jeep and covered the Joes while a Cobra officer stepped out and approached the team.

 

“What the fuck is this intrusion about?” the officer holding the Cobra rank of Captain demanded. “You troopers are a long way from the air assault training area!”

 

Falcon took care of the lying, since his uniform was that of a Desert Scorpion 2nd Lieutenant and since he was the leader of the small element. “Sir, we had a problem with our compasses during a glider air assault drill and aimed for this compound as soon as we saw the lights. We were part of a scratch platoon that had failed our first attempt at qualifying for night air assault tactics.”

 

The captain looked the Joes over in their Cobra uniforms. The Joes stood quietly as they had been ordered to and their uniforms appeared disheveled from feigning a rough landing. He broke into laughter, fully believing the group to be a hapless team suffering from faulty equipment. “You troopers had better check your gear better before going on a glider flight next time. I think you’ll be in enough trouble with your instructor explaining how you landed down here, so I’m not going to bust you for breaching our area. I do want you to police up all of your gliders and break them down for transport. I’ll send a truck around and you six can haul your sorry asses back up to Saddam International. Be gone within the hour.”

 

Falcon saluted the captain, who turned on his heel and returned to the Stinger. The small utility vehicle backed away and drove back to the camp’s main gate. After a few moments, the tower’s trainable spotlight went out and the figures of the two guards disappeared behind the tower’s half-wall.

 

“Whew, that story really worked,” Big Ben commented in a hoarse whisper.

 

“Lucky for us,” Rock & Roll muttered while he gathered up his equipment. “This don’t look like no training camp I’ve ever seen. Intel might have been off-base on this one. For a ‘behind-the-lines and low-value’ site, their perimeter security is tighter than a virgin’s snatch...”

 

“Stow it, Joes,” Falcon hissed to the whole group, quickly interrupting Rock & Roll’s profanity. Changing to a normal voice, he began calling out for the benefit of the guards. “Break down and collect the gliders! We’re gonna be in deep shit for failing the evolution a second time! I want to be ready to haul ass when that truck comes around! Move it along, troopers!”

 

The Joes busied themselves breaking the gliders down and neatly folding the hinged wing sections back together into their compact units. After they were satisfied the guards had taken their eyes off the team, Falcon turned to Big Ben and pulled a TDC out of the SAS trooper’s rucksack.

 

“What do you make of this place, Bennett?” Falcon asked in a low tone.

 

“Dunno,” Big Ben replied. “Looks like what the Intel blokes said at first glance, a training camp under construction. Although I’d wager my arse that big trench is not for draining out the camp’s supply of sewer shit.”

 

Lady Jaye ambled up to where Falcon and Big Ben were talking, dropping several sections of neatly folded shrouding fabric from the gliders at their feet. “You guys talking about the trench? I’ve seen similar pictures from books that outlined how the Air Force staged construction of their ICBM missile silos in the Midwest. I have a feeling we might have stumbled onto a weapons test site here.”

 

“I think the two of you and Rock & Roll are onto something here,” Falcon replied. “Sergeant Bennett, without drawing too much attention, see if you can snap a couple of digital photos and bang out a fast packet report on your TDC with the exact GPS coordinates of this snake den. We can add to it once we have the truck and are on the road.”

 

“Will do, mate,” Big Ben replied, pulling out the small palm-sized digital camera and drawing out a special fingertip trigger that could snap a photo when he rubbed two fingers together, instead of using the camera’s shutter button. He absently lifted up an edge of one of the gliders’ fabric shrouds that Jaye had laid at their feet. The loose fabric caught the desert breeze that was blowing and started to unfold and travel. With a grunted curse, the SAS trooper used the billowing fabric as an excuse to run along the fence line in pursuit, snapping pictures surreptitiously as he went. After a foot chase of about two hundred fifty feet, Sergeant Bennett dove onto the wayward fabric and rolled it up hastily in his arms, bringing it back to the others.

 

By the time Big Ben had returned with the bundle of glider shrouding, the guards in the tower were watching the Joes, doubled over in laughter from the fabric chase. The sound of a revving diesel engine drew everyone’s attention, as a nondescript military truck of Iraqi manufacture backed along the perimeter trace to be bathed in the glow of the guard tower spotlights as it reached Falcon’s team.

 

A disgruntled Motor Viper stepped from the truck’s cab, walking to the rear of the vehicle and dropped the cargo bed tailgate down with a noisy clang. “Come on, you troops! The fucking guard commander woke me up from a nice deep sleep to drive your glider assault asses back to Saddam International Airport. So let’s get your gear loaded! I want to be on the road and back here again before morning chow!”

 

Falcon strode up to the Motor Viper and stared at him through his shiny face plate as if he could see right through it. “I don’t give a flying fuck who you think you are, but a tone like that is going to get you on report with the ‘fucking’ guard commander courtesy of me. I think you’ll be in charge of loading our glider parts while my troops and I get comfortable, in exchange for keeping my mouth shut. Do you have any problem with that, scumbag?”

 

The Motor Viper saw the pips of Falcon’s officer grade pinned to his uniform lapel and visibly cringed when the officer reached for his sidearm for dramatic effect. He knew the reputation of Desert Scorpion officers and how cutthroat they were – even more so than the dregs of the Viper Legions that were deposited into the Desert Scorpion forces or who volunteered for training as the near-suicidal Desert CLAWS. He began to stammer, “Yes, sir. I’ll be happy to load all of the equipment and stow it on the truck myself, sir. Please get comfortable in the truck; we’ll be leaving shortly.”

 

The Joes climbed into the back of the army truck, snickering at the scared Motor Viper while he hoisted the aluminum tube frames and folded shrouding of the gliders onto the flat cargo bed. Falcon and Big Ben took up seats in the cab, leaving the driver’s seat free for the Motor Viper. When the loading was complete, the driver turned the truck’s diesel engine over with a rumble and sputters of smoke, and shifted into forward gear, starting the vehicle in motion.

 

***

 

G.I. Joe Operations Center

King Khalid Military City

0350 hours, local time

 

“Colonel Courage!” called out one of the duty communications specialists to the command duty officer of the night shift. “Boxcar One is down! Their ELT went off about thirty miles north-northwest of the port of Umm Qasr! CENTCOM is ordering out an air rescue party of the 129th Rescue Squadron from Hafr-al-Batin!” The 129th, a unit of the California Air National Guard, was one of the Air Force’s top-notch combat search and rescue units deployed to the theater and had a CSAR detachment collocated with the G.I. Joe aviation components.

 

“Find the general,” Colonel Courage ordered. “And rouse Altitude and the Sky Patrol in their alert bunker! Get Wild Bill or Lift-Ticket on the scrambler over at Hafr-al-Batin!” The colonel tore off a printout from one of the TDC transcription terminals and glanced at the initial report Falcon’s team had transmitted, indicating that digital images were on the way. He turned to another communications specialist. “Corporal, get the barracks CQ to send Lieutenant Crypto, Scarlett and Chuckles to the command center. Tomahawk’s going to want to talk to them about this Cobra compound.”

 

One of the videophone monitors in the command center came to life as Wild Bill called over from Hafr-al-Batin Air Base. “Colonel Courage,” Wild Bill reported. “We heard about the rescue call from one of the 129th chopper pilots, who has been losing cash to Ace all night. Lift-Ticket and the entire Sky Patrol unit’s already on the tarmac and boarding one of our Jolly Greens. They’ll be enroute shortly to join up with the Air Force rescue mission. We’re not leaving those bomber crewmen in the lurch!”

 

Wild Bill’s image changed to that of Lift-Ticket, who was sitting behind the stick of the large and noisy Boeing CH-53C+ Super Stallion transport helicopter. Behind where Lift-Ticket sat, the crew entry door was open and Colonel Courage could watch as Tailwind, Switchblade, Airborne, Ripcord, Airwave, Static Line, and the rest of the Sky Patrol air assault unit boarded the chopper. Altitude’s elbow was barely visible in the picture, as he sat next to Lift-Ticket performing the abbreviated take off checklist and radioing the air base’s tower for departure clearance.

 

“This is Lift-Ticket, Colonel Courage,” the veteran transport chopper pilot called out over the radio channel. “Air Assault team is aboard and we’re heading out to link up with the 129th Air Rescue Squadron unit and their para-rescue jumpers. Wish us luck!”

 

“Kick some Cobra ass, Sky Patrol One,” Colonel Courage replied over the videophone, preparing to report to General Tomahawk as the monitor faded to black.

 

***

 

Somewhere southwest of Baghdad

0450 hours, local time

 

The Iraqi army truck bounced along the rough and sparsely-traveled divided highway, the roadway having been abandoned by most civilian traffic due to fear of being targeted by Allied air strikes against Baghdad. Riding in the back, Lady Jaye found herself being shaken to the floor several times as she tried to uplink the handheld digital camera and her TDC to send the team’s spot report back to Tomahawk. Finally getting sick of the Motor Viper’s reckless driving, she pulled several fabric pieces from the gliders and plopped herself on them, riding in the bed of the truck so she could type steadily on the miniature keyboard provided with the TDC.

 

“Tomahawk from Hatchet One,” Lady Jaye keyed slowly. “Follow-up Spot Report. Mission team landed safely at designated LZ.” She typed on the TDC unit’s tiny keyboard, barely the size of a large text messaging pager. “Element is now enroute to rendezvous location. Recommend S-2 analyzes attached images and tasks recon of suspect camp. There may be more than meets the eye. All is well – LJ.”

 

After spelling out the cumbersome text message and uploading the photos directly from the digital camera, Jaye pressed the transmit button on her TDC and watched the team report get beamed over their secure satellite channel back to King Khalid Military City. She finally smiled when the confirmation flashed on her display, signifying the message made it home.

 

Rubbing a sore spot on her rump, Jaye hauled the glider fabric back onto the wooden bench seat of the truck and curled up to catch a few winks like the rest of her teammates. Everyone was huddled as close to the front of the truck bed as possible, wrapped in glider shrouding to keep warm from the bitter cold of the night air. As Jaye let her eyes close and slipped into slumber, she wondered if the heat was working up front and how much better it would feel on her goose-bumped skin.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, up in the cab, the Motor Viper was yawning and trying in his own sleepy way to keep the truck on the road. He had been maintaining a fairly decent clip while doing so. The driver had the truck running on the marginally paved, divided highway at close to sixty-five kilometers an hour, but the roughness of the road and the poor quality of the overtaxed truck engine made the trip hardly comfortable for the time they were making.

 

Falcon, riding in the center of the bench seat that crossed the truck cab, elbowed the Motor Viper roughly in the ribs and shouted over the revving diesel engine. “Hey, troop! Can’t you keep the ride more on the straight and narrow and less with the speed and lumps?”

 

The Motor Viper yawned loudly, shaken back to alertness by Falcon’s jab. “I do the driving, SIR. My orders were to dump you at Saddam International. No one told me I had to get you there any special way.” To no one in particular, the driver grumbled, “... as if it isn’t bad enough the heat in this rolling piss bucket either doesn’t work or runs at full blast. I hate this shitty equipment!”

 

“Then keep both your fucking eyes open and on the road, you shit head!” Falcon swore as the Motor Viper swerved and nearly missed a Bedouin nomad leading a camel along the side of the roadway, who promptly shook his fist in anger as he coughed away the cloud of dust the truck left behind.

 

Falcon turned to Big Ben and nodded slightly. The driver had long outlived his usefulness. The disguised Special Forces operator jabbed the Motor Viper again in the ribs, just to be annoying. “Jesus, soldier! Pull this fucking heap over! That last maneuver made me want to piss my pants! Stop this truck so I can get out and take a leak, for Christ’s sake!”

 

“Alright, I’ll stop! Alright, already!” groaned the driver as he brought the truck to a halt on its squeaky brakes. Opening the driver’s door of the truck, the Motor Viper stepped out to stretch his own legs. “There, sir. We’re stopped and none the worse for wear. Have fun pissing in the sand!”

 

Falcon shuffled to his left and slid out of the truck’s cab behind the Motor Viper, who was lighting up a cigarette and leaning against the hood of the truck for warmth in the cold desert night. Big Ben climbed out of the truck from the cab’s passenger door and silently watched the roadway for signs of approaching vehicles.

 

Falcon came up behind the Motor Viper, having unsheathed a saw-toothed combat knife of Cobra manufacture. In the light of the desert moon, the steel blade almost glowed. The Special Forces operator reached over the Motor Viper’s right shoulder with his right arm and pulled tightly on the Cobra soldier’s chest. The Motor Viper was completely surprised and began to struggle, reaching defiantly with his arms to try to dislodge Falcon’s grip.

 

In the space of a normal heartbeat, Falcon’s combat knife flashed around to the Motor Viper’s left and cut deeply into the trooper’s throat. Unable to call out, the Motor Viper coughed out a breath as a torrent of blood burst from the cut and his mouth. Falcon pressed a knee into the Motor Viper’s back and released him to fall forward onto the ground. The Viper rolled about in pain, coughing and fighting to take precious breaths of air as his own panic forced the blood to pump faster into the back of his throat, cutting off his air supply.

 

Big Ben rounded the truck’s cab from the roadside and pressed a boot on the Motor Viper’s solar plexus, keeping him from getting up off the ground. “Sorry, mate, nothing personal,” he said in his British accent. “You don’t factor into our business here, and with that attitude, we’ll be glad to rid ourselves of you.”

 

The Motor Viper’s eyes were flashing while they moved from Big Ben to Falcon and back, begging them for mercy. He clutched at his throat, his gloved hands tightening into a death grip while he unsuccessfully tried to stem the blood flowing from the deep gash. Unable to keep breathing, the Motor Viper let out a gasp and then his body went limp, the blood pooling around his head and staining the sand dark crimson.

 

Falcon wiped the few droplets of blood that stuck to his combat knife onto the Motor Viper’s azure blue jumpsuit before replacing the weapon in its leather scabbard. “Come on, Big Ben. Let’s roll this bugger into that little wadi and cover him up. Then we need to grab his maps and point the truck in the direction of central Baghdad.”

 

“Right-o, sir,” Big Ben replied, walking to the truck’s tailgate to unhook the vehicle’s tool kit, which included a small entrenching tool. “I’ll have him covered up in a jiff.”

 

After five minutes of work, the two Joes had the Viper’s corpse covered in a loose pile of sand and gravel at the bottom of a shallow wadi that would keep it out of sight from passing motorized columns. They also dumped a generous amount of sand on the pool of the soldier’s blood so that it wouldn’t visibly stand out along the roadway’s shoulder.

 

Climbing back into the truck’s cab, Big Ben took over the steering wheel while Falcon laid the driver’s area maps in his lap and used the secure-mode TDC to bring up the team’s exact GPS position. Once he knew the GPS position in latitude and longitude coordinates, Falcon was able to quickly spot the road they were on using an English-language military map among the stack of materials the Motor Viper had brought with him.

 

Performing some quick head work, Big Ben and Falcon estimated they were only thirty kilometers from the edge of the city and found the roads they needed to follow to reach the Fakesh Bazaar. Revving the sputtering diesel once again, Big Ben got the truck going, progressing along at a more agreeable speed.

 

***

 

Thirty miles north by northwest of Umm Qasr

0450 hours, local time

 

The morning sun burned hot and yellow as it rose over the flat desert horizon, chasing away the wisps of cold wind that characterized a desert night. The rolling vista of sand dunes and protruding hilly features in the distance all rippled with the rising heat of the day coming off the earth.

 

Jutting the top of his head up from the edge of a shallow ditch, LTCOL Grant peered out over the desert looking for enemy patrols. Behind him, the navigator, Captain Lester Grey, and the radar navigator, 1st Lieutenant David Tully, were burying the JUMP jet packs that saved their lives as their bomber fell apart around them.

 

Major Kent Lewis, the copilot, was organizing the crew’s survival supplies and watching over Captain Frank ‘Sparky’ Spinazzola, the ECMO, who had injured his right leg landing on a boulder that protruded from the blowing sand in the dark. The crew chief, TSgt. Thomas, and the loadmaster, Sergeant John Gregory, had taken off with a pair of M-4A1 carbines to scout for a source of water and an idea of enemy concentrations near their exact position.

 

Between the seven crewmen of Sally the Stripper, each man had an Air Force-issue .38 caliber revolver and a survival kit of medical supplies, flares and other sundries that they carried in flight suit survival vests. Thomas and Gregory had special bailout kits attached to their JUMP packs which provided them with the regular Air Force gear, plus a carbine and seven magazines of ammo each, along with collapsible canteens for water and extra MRE packs.

 

Thomas and Gregory crept along the bed of the ditch, laden with full canteens of water for the crew. As they distributed the clean water, they reported a usable oasis less than two miles from their position. They also reported that they had avoided at least four combined motorized patrols of Desert Scorpions and Iraqi Republican Guard soldiers from the Umm Qasr-based army corps.

 

Colonel Grant pulled out his CSEL, the new Combat Survivor Evader Locator which replaced older pilot’s survival radios in the early nineties. Keying in the GPS mode, he took a quick look at where the crew was hiding, and transmitted a brief report back to the friendly forces so that they could vector the CSAR package to them.

 

“Keep the faith,” a nondescript voice transmitted back to the colonel, most likely a Joint Controller from an AWACS plane or Airborne Command Post. “The 129th ARRS and a Special Forces rapid reaction team are inbound to your posit. Stay calm and under cover. Locate water if possible and avoid enemy contact. Report back in an hour for new instructions.”


	16. Stand Up and Be Counted

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Thirteen

Stand Up and Be Counted!

 

***

 

Thirty miles north by northwest of Umm Qasr

In the Iraqi desert

0705 hours, local time

 

The seven Air Force crewmen formerly of the B-52H bomber ‘Sally the Stripper’, found the oasis they had set out to locate. LTCOL Grant looked about at the blowing palm trees and the sandy ground before addressing his crew chief and the mission loadmaster. “This doesn’t look like a body of water amid the palms, sergeants. I think the heat might have gotten to you.”

 

TSgt. Thomas passed his loaded M-4 carbine to Lieutenant Tully and pointed him to a position near the perimeter of the crew’s shallow hide while Major Lewis worked the CSEL to update the closest AWACS of their position and to find out if a rescue was on the way. “Colonel, sir,” Thomas said quietly to conserve the moisture in his rapidly drying mouth. “There IS water here. The trees are the indication. The survival manual says we just have to do a bit of looking for it.”

 

Thomas pulled out a large bladed Air Force survival knife and began to dig into the sand. Feeling a cool sensation after dredging about a foot down, Thomas raised a fist full of wet sand. “The water’s here; it’s just underneath the surface. Let’s get digging so we can top off the canteens and wait for the rescue jumpers!”

 

LTCOL Grant withdrew a package of iodine-based water de-salinization and purification tablets. “I hope they get here before we develop a taste for these horse pills; talk about eating shit to save one’s life... These damn things taste horrible for all the gut saving the Air Force says they do with the local water.”

 

***

 

High above the desert, a formation of eight helicopters flew in a loose cluster over enemy airspace as the buildings and seaport of Umm Qasr and a raging ground battle between American armor and a Cobra-led Iraqi regiment over the port city were left behind.

 

The CSAR mission commander dispatched to bring home Sally’s crew flew in the center of the cluster in a specially-fitted UH-60A command and control slick. “Pickup Lead to all rescue elements. Loosen the formation up and report status. The ground unit has settled in at an oasis near grid reference mike-alpha 102575.”

 

Leading the formation of helicopters was a quartet of AH-64D Longbow Apaches from the Regimental Aviation Squadron of the 3rd Armored Cavalry. Their platoon leader was a senior First Lieutenant and veteran air cavalry pilot. “Gunfighter Lead to Pickup Lead. Our attack helicopters are raring to take out some enemy armor and troops for you!”

 

The 129th Rescue Squadron’s rescue jumpers rode aboard a pair of UH-60Q ‘Dustoff Hawk’ medevac aircraft, and their flight crews reported in as Pickup Two and Three.

 

Bringing up the rear of the section of lift helicopters, the Joes’ CH-53C ‘Jolly Green Giant’ with the Sky Patrol assault team aboard reported in. “Pickup Four,” Lift-Ticket responded over the CSAR guard channel. “Ground assault team is ready to secure rescue area Boxcar One on your orders.”

 

Another voice broke into the same guard channel, which belonged to one of the AWACS controllers on the E-3A Sentry ‘Quarterback 307’. “Quarterback Three-oh-seven to all rescue elements. Be advised that you’ve been assigned four fast movers for close air support. Contact Sandy Low Lead for additional firepower. You’re clear all the way to the rescue area. Good luck.”

 

Altitude, an Army Chief Warrant Officer and commander of the Joes’ Sky Patrol unit, studied the small data link terminal between his seat and Lift-Ticket’s. “Lift-Ticket, I don’t follow the readings coming over the link. The IFF data for the fast movers is being received from our secure channel which would mean the flight of Sandy Low aircraft is ours. That can’t be, can it?”

 

Lift-Ticket took a look at the characters streaming across the data link in between cursory glances at the passing terrain and the other rescue helicopters in the formation. “They sure are ours, Altitude. That code ‘Juliet-Sierra-Hotel’ stands for G.I. Joe Sky Hawks.”

 

Indeed, Lift-Ticket was right. Just after the Sky Patrol’s Jolly Green lifted off, Windmill (who was a specialist in close air support) gathered three newly-assigned Joe pilots - Mud-Mover, Bravado and Cool-Hand – and the ad hoc section took off in Sky Hawks to cover the rescue.

 

***

 

“Boxcar One to Quarterback Three-oh-seven on Guard,” LTCOL Grant said slowly over the rescue channel. “Boxcar One has seven sons of liberty who need their ride home. Do you have a status on that pickup?”

 

Aboard Quarterback 307, the rescue controller was a female Air Force staff sergeant and graduate of several survival schools, who was an expert at talking downed aviators through their survival problems. She had found that just the sound of a friendly female voice was enough to help calm the tensions over the situation on the ground.

 

“Boxcar One from Three-oh-seven,” the young female said over the channel. “A rescue op of whirlybirds has been cleared to cross into your area. You and your crew try to keep calm and report in immediately any time you need some reassurance or to report a change in your situation. We’re still out here with you. The jumpers are on the way to get you out.”

 

***

 

200 miles northwest of Umm Qasr

On the Tigris River

0730 hours, local time

 

As dawn arrived over the Tigris River, a slow-moving tugboat pushed its empty bulk loading barge through the lightly rippling water while waves of displaced freshwater splashed over the barge’s low bows.

 

There was very little visible activity aboard the small, multi-purpose coastal tugboat MV Hammurabi, and the various Iraqi and Cobra river security patrols seemed to give the craft a wide berth, since the radio wire that ran from the top of its smokestack to the pilothouse hung a string of signal flags that spelled out the boat’s purpose: refuse haulage. No one wanted to find a reason to stop and check the craft as it steamed northwest to Baghdad.

 

The snub-nosed tug pushed along its large, shallow-draft trash barge, looking well-worn by all appearances. But under the rusting gunwales and false bottom which was partly covered with piles of fresh waste, floated the Joes’ hidden secret, a Killer Whale armed hovercraft which bristled with weapons and Joes ready for action.

 

“Steady as she goes, Mister Stone,” Captain Muhammad Shuma’ar said in English as he scanned the moving river traffic on the Tigris using a pair of old British-made binoculars. “Keep those red warning buoys well to our starboard. We should be rounding the bend of the river near the Jabbur Industrial Area by 1000 hours. Our updated mission profile has us going upriver past Baghdad University to put in at approximately 1100 hours for loading some materials across from the river launch station in al-Karradah. Apparently, an American Tomahawk attack flattened the Presidential Palace and they are calling for trash barges to haul away some of the resulting debris.”

 

The veteran Iraqi tugboat skipper chewed on an unlit local cigar while thoughtfully looking out at the river contours that he knew from memory, even in the dead of the darkest nights. He unfurled a special CIA map of the center of Baghdad and laid it out on the chart table. “It should take until dark to load the barge from the unprepared shoreline, and then we’ll shove off. I’ll purposefully keep her running slow until we get our pickup orders on your signaling device... er... cellular phone. While loading, keep all of your other men below decks on the Whale unless we get into trouble. I will handle the language barrier and say that any of you that get spotted are undocumented Eastern European expatriates that signed on as my hands. No one will question that story.”

 

The pilothouse of the tugboat MV Hammurabi was a tight fit, having barely enough room for the skipper, Cutter at the wheel, and Clutch manning the Engine Order Telegraph (EOT) and pilothouse throttle panel which adjusted the tug’s speed as it churned its way along the tidal channel used by the myriad trawlers, inshore tankers and other vessels that worked the Iraqi waterways.

 

Cutter, Coast Guard Lieutenant Skip Stone, chewed on a wad of bubble gum while standing behind the tug’s helm, a small wheel connected to a modern-looking stainless steel panel with compass and speed gauges embedded within. Despite the modern look and feel of the steering equipment, the wheel itself was still the wooden hub-and-spoke replica of what one might expect on a seafaring vessel.

 

After a quick pop of the bubble gum, Cutter tightly gripped the tug’s wheel, as he fought some chop in the river waves, which had been generated by the wake of a large Cobra inshore tanker that was plodding its way to the open sea via Umm Qasr. “Keeping quiet is just how I like things to stay, Captain Shuma’ar. But speaking of quiet, there’s been no activity on the TDC. I hope the infiltration team didn’t get pinched upon arrival.”

 

The skipper watched as nervous Cobra troopers and contract sailors aboard the inshore tanker went about their duties or manned the ship’s 40mm dual-purpose gun turrets. He leaned out of the pilothouse window and gave a friendly wave in greeting to the passing vessel and was happy not to have gotten any response in return.

 

“Good, no one suspects us still,” the skipper said after leaning back inside the pilothouse. “That means your friend Deep Six is doing a good job staying in the clutter at the bottom of the tidal channels and not getting picked up on the patrol boats’ sonar equipment. No one wants to board us because the trash haulers are also being used by the central government authorities to haul away executed political convicts and other civilian dead from the capital, rather than to give them a proper burial. Before taking on this mission for the CIA, I had to put in near the Baghdad Hospital City and collect several morgues’ worth of corpses that were claimed to be victims from Allied air strikes that the hospital system couldn’t handle. Although I believe it really was the fucking Fedayeen Saddam militia that was out raping and pillaging and carrying on that got most of the civilians on that trip killed.”

 

“Hopefully, the Joes can take steps to really turn those murderous bastards on their ears, Captain,” Cutter replied as Clutch’s face twisted into an expression of dark anger. “We’re all determined to help free your people from that madman and the stooges from Cobra that are helping him.”

 

Captain Shuma’ar rolled up a sleeve on his dingy white uniform shirt and gingerly touched a deep, badly-healed shrapnel scar from wounds he had received piloting river assault boats for the Iraqi Army during the bloody Iran-Iraq War. “Yes, Mister Stone. I would very much like to see the end of that bloody cur, Saddam Hussein, in my lifetime. That bastard will pay for killing the Shiites in my hometown, especially my wife and children!”

 

***

 

Rescue Area “Boxcar One”

Thirty miles north by northwest from Umm Qasr

0730 hours, local time

 

Seven of the eight CSAR package helicopters stayed at a medium altitude with their Sky Hawk escorts in tow while Lift-Ticket angled the large CH-53C ‘Jolly Green’ towards the oasis where the bomber crew’s CSEL beacons marked their hideout. Looking from above, the air force crewmen had concealed their positions well, and were spread out in a small circular perimeter to cover each other and their injured man who was closest to the tiny spring of muddy water they had unearthed.

 

Lift-Ticket keyed his radio mike on the rescue group’s channel. “Pickup Four to Pickup Lead on guard channel; we’re descending to drop off the security team. We’re putting down in the open clearing five hundred meters to the west of the oasis.”

 

While Lift-Ticket received acknowledgments from Pickup Lead and Quarterback 307, Altitude twisted in his seat and looked over the combination of veteran air assault Joes and the new jump-qualified rawhides. “Two minutes to touchdown, Sky Patrol!” he yelled. “Lock, load and do a final equipment check! You green shirts take your stations and man the door guns! Talon, Slingarms and Tie-down, you three stand by with the stretchers and medical kits! Everyone else, prepare to hit the ramp running!”

 

From the passenger compartment of the cavernous CH-53C, the Joes seated along the edges yelled out in unison, “YO, JOE!” and the clicks of weapons bolts being worked traveled through the helicopter’s main cabin as each trooper inserted fresh magazines into their personal weapons and primed them for action. The four green shirts aboard the transport helicopter, two flight engineers and two aerial gunners, took up their positions and prepared for the vertical insertion.

 

The Jolly Green dove for the deck, with Lift-Ticket pulling the nose up at the last possible second, flaring the helicopter for rapid aerodynamic braking. His calculated efforts brought the large transport chopper into a hover three feet over the swirling desert sands in a fairly flat area away from the trees growing in the oasis.

 

The ramp dropped moments after Lift-Ticket steadied the helicopter over the LZ, and the Sky Patrol platoon leaped to the ground in pairs. Skydive, the platoon sergeant, and Storm Cloud, the platoon’s reconnaissance scout, led the twenty Joes cautiously towards the oasis. Once the fire teams were on the ground, Sky Patrol’s medical specialists – Talon, Slingarms and Tie-down – sprinted away from the helicopter with collapsible canvas stretchers and their carrying poles, as well as considerable emergency care medical kits on their backs.

 

“Skydive, this is Altitude,” the warrant officer in charge of the Sky Patrol platoon radioed from the Jolly Green. “Lift-Ticket and I spotted a Cobra motorized patrol on bearing two-two-zero. There’s no way to brazen it out, since they probably spotted us. Can you evacuate the crew to the LZ?”

 

Skydive groaned as he lowered the boom mike attached to his sleek Kevlar helmet and sent a reply. “Altitude, we haven’t reached the crew’s position and Quarterback said we have at least one injured. We’re going to have to hunker down until the patrol is suppressed.”

 

“Roger that,” Altitude responded from the helicopter, as Lift-Ticket jammed the throttles all the way forward and the whine of the turbine engines increased to a fever pitch. “We’re lifting off and sending in the Sandies and Gunfighters. Good luck. Out.”

 

Skydive and Storm Cloud led Drop Zone, Airwave, Talon, Slingarms and Tie-Down into the oasis and the group dropped to the sand when they heard the clicks of the air force crew’s pistols and carbines being locked and loaded.

 

“Hold your fire!” Skydive shouted to the bomber crew. “G.I. Joe Sky Patrol! We’re here to extract you, Boxcar One!”

 

LTCOL Grant poked his head up from the edge of a shallow trench and rested the M-4 in his hands onto the sand. “It’s about fucking time you Spec Ops jokers got here! We were about to go have tea with a Cobra patrol or two!”

 

Skydive approached the colonel’s trench and waved the medics on ahead to care for the ECMO’s broken bones and get him ready to move. “Colonel, sir, you may still have that opportunity. The pickup pilots spotted a Cobra motorized patrol heading our way and had to take off. We’re going to have to hold this spot in case our air cover doesn’t kill ‘em all.”

 

“You boys... er... boys and girls must be gluttons for punishment, then,” the Air Force Lt. Colonel replied, noticing that two of the airborne-qualified combat medics on the team were females. “You came all this way just to party with some raggedy-ass shot down Airedales. I for one am touched.”

 

“We have four fire teams fanned out around us,” Skydive added. “They’ll give us some warning. Just worry about keeping your crew together and ready to move when the dustoff comes. We’ll take care of your injured man.”

 

***

 

Airborne and Ripcord furiously dug at the loose sand in a shallow cut three hundred meters southwest of the oasis. Crazylegs and Freefall were covering them as the Joes tried to dig foxholes in the flowing sand.

 

“Holy shit!” Freefall swore, scanning the area around their position with binoculars. “I have visual contact on that Cobra patrol! There are a good half dozen Stuns or more out there and they’re all coming our way!”

 

Airborne stopped digging and glanced in the direction Freefall indicated, seeing a rising dust cloud from the fast-moving vehicles. “I see ‘em. Put your game faces on, troopers, and pick your lanes; I’m calling the boss.” The veteran air assault trooper lowered the boom mike attached to his helmet and keyed his radio. “Sky Two to Sky Six. Contact imminent, danger close. Enemy column of multiple Stuns, six at least, probably closer to a dozen. My team is in a shallow cut or wadi to the oasis’s southwest. We’re going to try to knock a couple out and then collapse on your posit. Over.”

 

Skydive listened intently to Airborne’s report and acknowledged it with a terse “Roger that, Sky Two. Hold your position and report upon making contact.” He then ordered Airwave to quickly contact the other fire teams to have them re-position and prepare for the Cobra attack.

 

Orbiting over the rescue area, the command and control helicopter crew leaped into action. “Pickup Lead to Sky Two. Pop red smoke upon making contact; we’re vectoring some heavies your way!” The rescue coordinator changed channels to that of the flying elements. “Alert to all rescue elements, this is Pickup Lead. Ground unit is engaging enemy motorized patrol. Danger close. Our guys are heavily outgunned. Sandy Low Lead, you take the first pass with your Sky Hawks. Pickup Two, search for red smoke southwest of the oasis and prepare for an emergency snatch-and-grab if our fire team becomes in extremis.”

 

Windmill, flying Sandy Low Lead, responded immediately, followed by the Air Force chopper pilot in the Pickup Two UH-60Q. The four Joe Sky Hawks swept out of the sky, following the dust that the Cobra Stuns were kicking up as they raced for Sky Patrol and the downed Air Force crewmen.

 

Making minor course adjustments on the highly-responsive VTOL attack craft, Windmill keyed his radio and issued orders to the rawhide pilots behind him. “Sandy Low Lead to all Sandies. Friendly troops are in a cut outside the oasis and will pop smoke to identify their position. Try to throw up a barrier of steel before those Stuns overrun their coward-holes.”

 

Mud-Mover, flying on Windmill’s wing, banked his Sky Hawk into a sweeping turn and then leveled off with his gun sights centered on the lead Stun. The rawhide pilot nosed the aircraft into a steep dive to strafe the Cobra vehicle and pressed the throttle to the stops, making his turbine engines scream as they generated maximum diving speed. “Lead, this is Sandy Two. Lead vehicle is in sight. Tally ho! I’m rolling in hot!”

 

Mud-Mover’s Sky Hawk, its original olive green color painted over with a cross between a traditionally British ‘desert pink’ and standard Army tans in a random camouflage pattern, dove for the deck. When the range finder built into the pilot’s HUD flashed and the Stun filled the gun sight pipper, Mud-Mover depressed the trigger on his control stick and the twin 20mm guns that protruded from the nose of his craft buzzed and spat fire.

 

On the ground, Airborne’s fire team watched the Sky Hawk swoop in on its strafing run and kept their heads down when the lead vehicle was showered in gunfire. “SMAW up!” Airborne yelled to Crazylegs, who raised the bazooka-like lightweight rocket launcher to his shoulder and watched the clouds of dust for a target to come into range.

 

The Cobra Stun was a fairly well-protected vehicle when used against infantry. The driver rode on a raised platform over the engine and drive wheels and two gunners manned trainable, armored main gun barbettes with twin guns each. A fourth crewman rode facing the rear of the vehicle with the Stun’s twin air-defense machine guns. It was light and fast, but had little or no armor in many places and no top cover.

 

Mud-Mover’s strafing run riddled the patrol’s lead Stun with high explosive 20mm bullets, which tore into the open crew seats and ripped the Motor Viper crewmen to shreds. With the loss of the driver, the Stun barreled over a sand dune and crashed into a shallow depression, throwing the dead crew in all directions before exploding.

 

The loss of the lead vehicle spurred the rest of the patrol into action. The remaining Stuns fanned out into a line and turned towards the oasis while the tail gunners brought their high-angle machine guns to bear on the Sky Hawk flight that circled overhead like raptors hunting for prey to kill.

 

While Mud-Mover pulled out of his strafing dive, Windmill swept in behind him and his 20mm guns churned flame and smoke, ripping into another Stun and sending it into a sideways roll when the vehicle burst into flame and the driver panicked.

 

***

 

Skydive listened in his radio headset to Airborne’s spot report from the ground. “Sky Two to Sky Six. Fast movers are hitting the patrol now, but the enemy’s developing a skirmish line and coming right for the oasis. We’re going to need dustoff right quick once our rockets run out!”

 

Looking around his immediate area, Skydive saw that the trio of medics had the Air Force crewmen organized to move out, and the ECMO’s broken leg had been set. The injured officer was laid in the collapsible stretcher, and TSgt. Thomas helped Tie-Down hoist the assembly up while Talon nodded to Skydive indicating that the group was ready to go any time.

 

Skydive keyed his radio and shouted into the boom mike as the roar of the Stuns’ engines and weapons fire carried to the oasis. “Sky Six to Pickup Lead. Clear Pickup Four to land and commence retrieval. Enemy is to our west and fire teams are collapsing to the oasis except for Sky Two’s blocking position. Expedite!”

 

Lift-Ticket heard Skydive’s transmission and nodded to Altitude. “Let’s hit the sand!” the pilot yelled in his Southern drawl, pushing forward on the stick to bring the CH-53C back down towards the ground. He also slowly let down the collective, which kept the transport helicopter level on its rapid approach. “Pickup Four to Pickup Lead. Recovery aircraft is inbound!”

 

***

 

“Kill him now!” Airborne yelled to Crazylegs while opening up with his M-16A2 on a Stun that had cleared the clouds of dust and charged for their position. Crazylegs leveled the SMAW at the driver’s compartment and squeezed the trigger, sending an armor-piercing explosive rocket into the vehicle’s center of mass. The Joes had to duck behind the edge of the wadi when the vehicle nearly exploded on top of them and careened into a sand dune close by.

 

Three of the Motor Vipers were able to bail out of the Stun and opened fire on the wadi with their Skorpion machine pistols. Ripcord aimed his FN-FAL assault rifle in their direction and shot back at full automatic. Freefall helped Ripcord by adding fire from his M-16 and loaded a 40mm antipersonnel grenade into his M-203 grenade launcher.

 

“Heads down!” Freefall yelled to his teammates. “I’m gonna frag those Motor Vipers!” No sooner had he yelled the warning, the hollow bloop sound of a grenade leaving the M-203 punctuated the deaths of the Cobra troopers when the high-explosive fragmentation round blasted them to smithereens.

 

***

 

“Gunfighter Lead from Sandy Low Lead,” Windmill called over the rescue channel as the second pair of Sky Hawks streaked away from their strafing runs. “We’ve cleared the area. Take your turn on the Cobra patrol while we cover the extraction!”

 

“Gunfighter Lead acknowledges,” replied the Apache platoon commander. “We’re rolling in hot!”

 

The screams of the jet-powered Sky Hawks faded and were replaced by the pounding sounds of the Apache helicopter gunships beating on the still desert air with their rotors. In pairs, the AH-64D’s dove for the desert floor, machine-gunning the Stuns with their high-velocity 30mm Bushmaster cannons or blasting at them with Hydra-70 unguided rockets.

 

Some of the Motor Vipers in the patrol had abandoned their damaged vehicles and taken up firing positions facing Airborne’s fire team. Eventually finding the right ranges, the Vipers began to trade gunfire with the Joe paratroopers.

 

“We’re taking ground fire from a dismounted element, Sky Six,” Airborne called on his radio. “Send reinforcements so we can withdraw in force! They still have enough men to overpower us!”

 

Back at the oasis, the last of the fire teams had converged on the downed crewmen and were milling about, watching the smoke clouds rising to their west or listening to Airborne’s reports and waiting for the Jolly Green to touch down.

 

Switchblade ran over to Skydive, holding the boom mike for his radio in a clenched fist. “Can’t we do something for them, Skydive? I volunteer to go and back those Joes up! Give me a rucksack full of spare ammo and SMAW rockets!”

 

Skydive’s face turned into a dark, angry expression. “You return to your post and cover the perimeter, Switchblade! Our orders are explicit – We have to guard the bomber crew until the Jolly lands. The Dustoff Hawks have rescue jumpers that can yank our fire team out.”

 

Switchblade ground a boot into the sand disgustedly and kicked up a small cloud as he protested. “That’s bullshit! We need to go out there and take care of our own, our orders be damned! I’m going out to reinforce that team! I’d rather die with them than sit here jerking off while the enemy is a few hundred meters away!”

 

“Switchblade...” Skydive warned, as the brash corporal spun about and hefted his assault rifle. He started to raid other Joes’ rucksacks and the unit’s supply containers, collecting extra magazines of M-16 ammo, SMAW rockets and grenades for the M-203 launcher.

 

A hand rested on Switchblade’s shoulder, and he twisted abruptly, turning his face to see who was trying to stop him. The hand belonged to Tailwind, and two other rawhides, Airfoil and Vertigo, who had fought alongside Switchblade in Tampa, were standing behind her and had their weapons at the ready.

 

“Airborne needed a fire team to back him up, not just you, you pigheaded hero,” Tailwind said quietly. “There’s a big enemy force out there. Calm down and think a minute.”

 

“They don’t have a minute!” Switchblade insisted, stuffing more ammo into his rucksack. “Don’t try to restrain me for going against Skydive’s orders! Those guys are not going to die while we sit around waiting for a ride!”

 

“We’re not here to restrain you, Corporal,” Tailwind whispered with a smile. “Airfoil, Vertigo and I are going with you. I told you Airborne needed a team. We’re your team. Come on, Soldier, we have to hoof it over there quick!”

 

After a few more moments of ammo gathering, the four new Joes scurried out in the direction of Airborne’s fire team.

 

***

 

An explosion forced Airborne’s team to duck their heads into the sand at the base of the shallow wadi as the dismounted Motor Vipers lobbed 30mm rifle grenades at their position. “How’s your ammo?” Airborne yelled to his men over the sounds of Thermite and nitroglycerine cooking off above their heads.

 

“Five magazines left,” Ripcord shouted, firing a series of aimed shots at a pair of Motor Vipers who exposed themselves from behind a smoldering and overturned Stun. When his rifle went dry, he ejected the spent magazine and clapped in a new one. “Make that four.”

 

The hollow bloop of Freefall’s M-203 was soft compared to the enemy grenade explosions when it fired. “That’s the last of the forty millimeter grenades, Airborne,” Freefall replied. “I’m down to three magazines.”

 

Crazylegs had set the SMAW aside and was punching away at the Vipers with his M-4 carbine. “No B-300 rockets left, Airborne! I only killed three Stuns for the six rockets we had, dammit... I’m down to three magazines and a couple clips of ammo for my Beretta, which ain’t worth a damn at these ranges!”

 

Airborne slapped another magazine into his M-4 carbine and pulled back on the charging handle to get it ready to fire. “I’m down to three. Ammo is getting critical and we don’t have the firepower to stay. I’m going to call for emergency extraction!”

 

Ripcord looked in Airborne’s direction and shouted a warning. “Wait a sec! I hear moving gravel to our right flank! Someone’s in the wadi with us!”

 

“Damn it!” Airborne cursed, shuffling over to Ripcord’s spot. The two men trained their rifles in the direction of the cautious footfalls. Ripcord produced a small plastic clicking device that was part of Sky Patrol’s SOP in case of a firefight. The “cricket” was a means to identify other members of the team without shouting to give away their positions. One click was a challenge, three was the positive response. It was a simple system, but the Cobras had yet to figure it out.

 

Ripcord clicked once on his “cricket”, and then he and Airborne listened as three clicks wafted from the direction of the new sounds. Once the men relaxed their weapons, Tailwind led the rawhide fire team around a bend in the wadi. Vertigo and Airfoil rushed to Crazylegs and Freefall, dropping to the sand in prone positions and taking over suppressive fire against the Cobras with their M-249 squad automatic weapons.

 

“Damn glad to see you, Joes,” Airborne said with a sand-encrusted smile as he accepted fresh magazines from Switchblade and passed some to Ripcord. “Did you happen to bring some more rockets so we can put a hurt on the enemy some more?”

 

Tailwind helped Switchblade lower a huge rucksack to the sand and opened it up. “Ask and you shall receive, Sergeant.” She raised two disposable carrying cases, each with six B-300 rockets inside.

 

“Get those to Crazylegs, pronto!” Airborne said, guiding Tailwind down the wadi with one container of rockets. He then pointed out the enemy firing points to Switchblade and sprayed some suppressive fire of his own in their direction. “I thought Skydive was supposed to follow orders and maintain the perimeter with all the other fire teams. What changed his mind?”

 

“We came on our own,” Switchblade replied, firing at and hitting a Motor Viper who raised his head too far out of cover. “He also didn’t try to stop us. We weren’t going to leave you out here in the lurch!”

 

“Thanks to all of you for coming back,” Airborne said. “What’s the plan of escape?”

 

“I have no idea myself,” Switchblade said in reply, lobbing a baseball grenade into the hulk of a Stun and blasting out the Vipers using it for cover. “I figured for now, we cover the oasis so the dustoff can come pick the Airedales up. The Dustoff Hawks can come in for us when the Sky Hawks and Apaches get it together and suppress the enemy further.”

 

“That’s good enough for me,” Airborne said, firing a three round burst right into the center of mass of one of the Cobra patrol’s officers who was trying to direct an assault on the wadi.

 

***

 

The Apache platoon commander keyed his mike on the rescue force channel as his gunner knocked out a Stun that was trying an end run to the oasis and sent it tumbling into a shallow ditch. “This is Gunfighter Lead to all elements. No vehicle movement in the Cobra column. It looks like we bagged them all. There’s just a whole mess of dismounts trying to make the ground pounders’ lives hell.”

 

“Pickup Four is touched down,” Lift-Ticket added over the same net when he felt the large landing gear wheels of the Jolly Green touch the ground. The green shirts in the main cabin of the transport had the rear ramp down and the gunners were ready to protect the evacuation with their M-134 mini-guns. “We’re standing by to load up!”

 

Skydive burst through a series of palm tree trunks, leading the remaining three fire teams of Sky Patrol troopers and the cluster of B-52 bomber crewmen. They ran out in a single file line to the left side of the transport and then Skydive counted each trooper as they hauled ass into the waiting helicopter. He glanced around nervously and then clapped the tail ramp gunner on the shoulder and climbed in.

 

“What’s the count, Skydive?” Altitude yelled into the main cabin from the cockpit as the mechanical whirr of the ramp lifting motor brought the tail ramp back to its closed position. The green shirt aerial gunner manning the M-134 mounted in the side entry door opened fire at what he thought was an approaching team of Motor Vipers. They ended up being rippling mirages once the helo’s rotors spun up to full speed and dissipated some of the roiling heat coming off the desert floor.

 

“Fifteen from the rescue unit and seven Air Force crew aboard, Altitude,” Skydive reported. “One injury so far, the bomber’s ECMO had a broken leg when we got to them. There are eight Joes holding a blocking position southwest of the oasis against a heavy concentration of Vipers that survived from the patrol. All present are accounted for, and otherwise intact.”

 

“Got it,” Altitude replied, tapping Lift-Ticket on the shoulder. “Let’s get this crate back in the air.” Altitude’s hands gently gripped the collective and control stick, as he helped Lift-Ticket bring the large Jolly Green back into the sky in a swirl of desert dust.

 

Once the Jolly Green was a few feet off the ground, Altitude turned back to look in the main cabin. The ECMO was being well cared-for by the Sky Patrol medics. Slingarms, Sergeant Connie Armstrong, was even holding the officer’s hand as she took his pulse and administered a pre-measured dose of morphine to take the edge off his injury while they headed home.

 

“Pickup Four to Pickup Lead,” Altitude reported on the radio. “Dustoff is complete with seven recovered Airedales. We have eight troopers holding the low ground that need an immediate pickup!”

 

“Pickups Two and Three are on the way, Four,” the rescue coordinator reported before addressing the section of Sky Hawks providing close air support. “Pickup Lead to Sandy Low Lead. Put those dismounted Vipers’ heads down and keep them there! Dustoff is inbound for the southwest blocking position!”

 

Altitude nodded at the report from the rescue commander and tried to raise Airborne. “Airborne, this is Altitude. Sky Two, this is Pickup Four. Be advised that your ride home is on the way. Pack up your kit bags and stand by to move!”

 

***

 

Airborne ducked his head from another anti-personnel grenade explosion while the sharp-eyed Vertigo peppered the Motor Viper position the grenade came from with his chattering light machinegun. “Roger that, Pickup Four. We’ll pop red smoke when the Dustoff Hawks are in sight!”

 

“Pickup Two to Sky Two, roger that. Red smoke at LZ. Think your team can handle fast-rope extraction?”

 

Airborne glanced at the special Sky Patrol combat rigging on his teammates that doubled as the necessary straps and supports for the Special-Purpose Insertion/Extraction (SPIE) “Fast Rope” system. “Pickup Two from Sky Two. We are A-OK with SPIE gear. Can one of your birds take all eight of us in a lift?”

 

The pilot of Pickup Two smiled as he responded on the radio. “Sky Two, it’ll be one helluva show for the enemy, but we can tackle the load! Pickup Three’s gunners will keep the enemy’s weapons off us on the way out. Stand by for drop lines.”

 

The squat shapes of the Air Force UH-60Q Dustoff Hawks swept low over the battleground, bursting through the columns of smoke and the pall of kicked up dust the battle had raised. “Pickup Two to Sky Two, pop smoke now!”

 

Switchblade nodded to Airborne and withdrew a pair of red M-17A1 smoke grenades. Yanking the cotter pins out with his teeth, he threw them over the edge of the wadi and two columns of thick red smoke blew up into the air.

 

The co-pilot of Pickup Two was on the left side of the helicopter and spotted the rising red smoke first. “Lieutenant Dobbs! I have red at ten o’clock!”

 

Lieutenant Dobbs, the aircraft commander of Pickup Two, leaned across the center console of the Dustoff Hawk and nodded in agreement. “Crew chief, drop the SPIE lines over the side! Rescue Jumpers, stand by for recovery!”

 

Dobbs put the UH-60Q into a stationary hover, using the downward rotor wash to blow the haze beneath the helicopter away from the wadi. He slowly re-positioned the helicopter until his eyes told him he was right over the eight moving shapes below.

 

Sparks flew and metal rattled against metal as Motor Vipers from the patrol tried to find Pickup Two’s range from below. Their fire soon abated when Pickup Three swept past, their air crewmen firing away with machine guns into the enemy’s fighting positions. As soon as Dobbs had the chopper stable, the rescue crewmen dropped four SPIE lines and eight locking hitches over the edge of the open troop deck.

 

Airborne spotted the first black line of woven climber’s rope snaking to the bottom of the wadi. The three other coils of line fell within a few seconds, followed by the locking hitches. “Lines are down, Joes! Let’s get the hell out of Dodge!”

 

All eight Sky Patrol Joes converged on the SPIE ropes, slinging their weapons over their necks and shoulders and firing from the hip to keep the Cobras confused. Airborne hooked himself up first, and then secured a hitch to the back of each soldier’s harness. Once everyone was secured, each pair of Joes gathered up the end of their line and Airborne called out over the radio, “Pickup Two, this is Sky Two. Lift off now!”

 

The Cobras’ automatic weapons fire seemed to slow on its own, as Pickup Two’s rotor blades angled into the airflow and the twin turbines screamed at full power. The Dustoff Hawk slowly rose into the sky, buzzed by its partner, which was still strafing Viper positions. The eight Joes dangled from the SPIE lines as they all rose into the sky.

 

After a few moments of evasive flight, the pair of Dustoff Hawks found a safe clearing to put down, lowering the Joes back onto terra firma. The eight soldiers shrugged out of their lifting hitches and finally climbed into the rescue choppers, happily settling in for the ride back to Hafr-al-Batin.

 

“Pickup Two to Pickup Lead, mission accomplished. Rescue area “Boxcar One” is clear and sanitized! We’re requesting clearance to return to base!”

 

***

 

Fakesh Bazaar, Baghdad

0750 hours, local time

 

The Fakesh Bazaar was a cluster of specialty vendor store fronts and open-air stalls that mostly dealt in black market items, smuggled and legally-imported foreign goods from as far away as Europe or China. It was a small sub-division of the al-Shorjah Souq Market, the main food and commodities market in Baghdad that was used by most ordinary Iraqis who lived and worked in the sprawling metropolitan sections of the city.

 

The war appeared to be very far from the al-Shorjah Souq. Civilians walked around in clusters, shopping and haggling loudly with vendors for goods. Off-duty members of the Iraqi armed forces and Fedayeen paramilitary fighters trolled the area on personal business, while Cobra Vipers and Iraqi policemen, wearing distinctive brassards to identify them as the law, kept the population safe.

 

Big Ben brought the Joes’ military truck to a squealing halt near an open parking area and found a place among several AML-90 armored cars, civilian police cruisers, and Cobra Stinger jeeps. The team dismounted and lined up next to the truck while Falcon took a quick look at the market entrance through a pair of binoculars.

 

“Looks pretty serene over there,” Falcon commented. “If you can call that mess an example of local normalcy.”

 

“Aye, it’s typical of central marketplaces in this part of the world,” Big Ben added. “Despite being crammed with civilians, I’d take a good guess that there are enough regular security troops and militia crazies to turn that place into an armed camp at the first sign of trouble.”

 

“Then that’s the last thing we need to do,” Lady Jaye said slowly. “It’s always bad luck to shake a stick at a buzzing hornet’s nest.”

 

Falcon quieted the small talk with a wave of his hand. “Well, there are plenty of Cobras around that look like they’re just sampling the local color, and we will fit in fine walking the area with our weapons. Let’s split into pairs again and hunt for our contact. Big Ben and Mutt, Rock & Roll and Zap, and Lady Jaye and I will be the pairs. As soon as you make contact, go to ground with the agent somewhere out of sight, signal the others and turn on your TDC in locator mode so we can follow you. And please try to stay out of trouble, all of you.”

 

Slinging their weapons casually over their shoulders, the three pairs of Joes fanned out to sweep the Fakesh Bazaar part of the market in search of their CIA contact.

 

***

 

Lady Jaye and Falcon strode confidently amid the stalls and storefronts that lined the merchant rows of the Fakesh Bazaar in their captured Cobra uniforms. So far, their part of the pattern search for the CIA contact within the market had yielded no results.

 

Despite the war and the Baghdad government’s claims of humanitarian crises, the stalls and stores here were well-stocked with a combination of locally-produced versions of popular European and Western commodities, and examples of bona fide products smuggled in from outside Iraq for the black market trade. Because of the tenuous military situation, Syrian and Russian penny-ante arms smugglers had begun to make a temporary home in a corner of the Fakesh Bazaar, peddling their more deadly wares to militia, loyalist civilians, or foreign “volunteers”.

 

Lady Jaye stopped casually at one of the more sleazy-looking arms dealers’ spaces and picked up an RPG-18, showing it to Falcon. “Here’s a nice toy, Lieutenant. Do you think you can spare a few dinars from your pay for one?”

 

Falcon returned the anti-tank weapon to the smiling vendor without even a cursory inspection and walked on. “I’m not interested in souvenirs, Sergeant.” As he turned to move along the row of vendor stalls, he noticed a group of armed Iraqis forming nearby that regarded the Cobra uniforms carefully. Most of the group of seven Iraqi males, all in their mid-to-late twenties, wore civilian clothes and carried their AK-47’s lazily cradled or slung over their shoulders. “Sergeant, were you expecting some company from among the local color?” Falcon asked in a hoarse whisper, jerking his chin in the direction of the Iraqis.

 

Jaye gave the cluster of men a subtle glance over Falcon’s shoulder as she turned to walk beside the Lieutenant. Making eye contact with her team leader, she mouthed the words “Fedayeen militia”. Out of the Iraqis’ sight, her hand slipped instinctively to the pistol holster she wore on her upper thigh, where she silently cocked the hammer back on her loaded automatic and flipped off the safety catch, so the weapon could be fired instantly at any sign of trouble.

 

“Play it cool, Sergeant, and let’s move on,” Falcon whispered, his eyes shifting in the direction of a busy food stand where an outdoor grill was being used to make beef hamburgers. In his normal tone, he said, “Now, I sure can spare some dinars out of pocket for some chow. Think the local burgers are any better than the mess hall slop at Camp al-Shu’a?”

 

“Only if they use one hundred percent, bona fide cow to start with,” Lady Jaye responded, pinching her nose at the thought of eating the local version of ‘beef’ and discovering it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

 

As the Joes aimed themselves towards the hamburger stall, the Fedayeen militiamen were joking and pointing in their direction as they cajoled through the market, shoving civilians aside and being generally disrespectful to the Muslim women, who meekly gave way. They carried bottles of imported Western beers and drank as much as they could handle. For the average militia member in the Fedayeen, an ample supply of simple Western commodities like beer, chocolate, and personal items, was no doubt part of the perks system that they were accustomed to – rewards given out to the loyal members of Saddam’s personal rabble.

 

In the eyes of the rest of the world’s armed forces, the self-styled title of “Saddam’s Praetorian Guard” that had been hung by the media upon the group was nothing more than a grandiose joke at best. Although the Fedayeen Saddam was well-supported by the dictator’s regime, paid more than a fair civilian wage to supplement their civilian incomes, and lavished with separate armories stocked with equipment that was as good as that of the Special Republican Guards, the force as a whole was a lax, undisciplined paramilitary organization.

 

The Fedayeen had about as much respect from the members of the trained Iraqi Army, Police and Republican Guards as a vigilante group would get from the local authorities in any major American city. In many instances, the Fedayeen leaders were local strongmen who had been drummed out of the regular military or civilian authorities and used membership in the militia as a back-channel to overtake the normal government and carve out a niche of power for themselves. Fedayeen were rewarded more for their “proclaimed” loyalty to defending the Saddam regime than for any military prowess. And despite those rewards from the central government, or maybe because of them, the Fedayeen in many places were known to take harsh and extreme liberties on their own against the fearful Iraqi population in the name of their “Great Leader”.

 

The sole Fedayeen in uniform, apparently the group’s leader, stood at the head of the laughing group as they followed Falcon and Lady Jaye through the bazaar. He was somewhat educated, and tried to address the Joes in broken English, yelling in Lady Jaye’s direction with an alcohol-slurred tone. “Hey there, Sergeant! Hey, you! For a female Cobra trooper, you have a very beautiful face!”

 

Jaye tried to ignore the opening taunt, whispering a curse under her breath. “I say, blow it out your asses, militia punks!” Falcon looked over his shoulder to keep tabs on what the Fedayeen were up to as well.

 

The militia commander kept on talking, as he took a quick swagger from all the beer and had to brace himself on one of his thugs. “I thought pretty females in Cobra like you slept their way to the top and sexed up Cobra Commander for favors and a cushy job! Only the ugly ones, the lesbians, and the stupid become Desert Scorpions and stay on the front lines! Which one are you? Are you a lesbian or just plain stupid?”

 

Lady Jaye continued to ignore the militiaman and walked closer to Falcon. All seven Fedayeen quickened their walking pace and followed the pair of Joes much closer than before, as the taunts continued. “Ah, so. I see how it is for you. You’re just starting out small and sleeping with that strapping Lieutenant first. Are you getting a good fuck out of her, Lieutenant Cobra? Is she your platoon sergeant now because she gives you a good hand job in the barracks at night? Does she keep you company in the cold trenches? If you want a quicker referral to the golden riches, soldier girl, why don’t you try fucking us? We have the ear of the Great Leader himself!”

 

One of the militiamen jabbed at Lady Jaye’s back with an open hand, and the veteran Joe couldn’t restrain herself from responding. Slapping the hand away, she whirled about on her heel and stood her ground, scowling at the Fedayeen thugs. “You assholes had better take your drunken, horny selves somewhere else and pick some other individuals to harass, or the Lieutenant and I will teach you a painful lesson about messing with your ally’s combat soldiers!”

 

The Fedayeen squad leader’s face twisted into a mask of fear at Lady Jaye’s threat, and then the whole group laughed raucously, keeping the angry Jaye at arm’s distance. Chugging the last of their beers, the thugs drank themselves into an ornery frenzy and targeted Falcon for continued taunting. “What about you, Lieutenant? Are you not a man? Are you not going to stand up and defend your lover? Or don’t you want it known that you and the pretty Sergeant share a barracks bed? I’ll make you a deal and keep quiet in exchange for your lover servicing me and my men...”

 

The leader waved his hand and without any warning, the six thugs under his command dove on Jaye and Falcon, pairs of men taking hold of each Joe and hauling them into a vacant alleyway between two large storefronts. Neither Joe called out in distress. When the situation escalated, many of the civilians anxiously yielded way to the cluster of Fedayeen or totally ignored the goings-on, most of them thankful that they themselves weren’t the targets of the Fedayeen thugs’ interest.

 

***

 

“Wait. Wait a second,” Lady Jaye begged as she struggled against the grip of the militiamen holding her by the arms. Despite the effects of their inebriation, the thugs’ libido seemed to give them an iron grip, in anticipation of the fun ahead. She eased off on her struggles, and the men holding her started to relax. That was a wrong move for them.

 

Jaye turned on a starlet’s voice, dripping with sexy. “Don’t you big boys think that you should put your weapons down someplace safe? I’d hate for one to go off right in the middle of you having your way with me. You big, strong studs won’t need them to keep me in line...”

 

The men’s judgment was so impaired by the alcohol they had drunk, that the urge overtook their common sense. Each thug in turn stacked their AK-47 in a neat pile along one side of the alley.

 

“Put her against the wall,” the leader ordered, motioning to a bare spot along the bricks where the men could hold Lady Jaye. The thugs holding her quickly had her hands up on the wall and her legs spread. Their hands eagerly moved along her body and brushed against her breasts while they unbuckled her body armor to remove it.

 

“Oh, it feels so good to have two pair of beefy, manly hands on me at once,” Jaye cooed alluringly, as all of the thugs turned their attention on her. The two thugs guarding her lifted her body armor up over her shoulders and head, and one turned to set it aside while the leader closed in from behind, unzipping the front of his uniform trousers.

 

“Hold her well, men,” the leader ordered, in Arabic. “I will have her first and then all of you can take your turns.”

 

Falcon noticed the grip of his two guards had slackened as they turned their attention to what was about to happen to Lady Jaye. The timing was perfect for the Joes to counter-attack. The Special Forces operator shifted his weight slightly and bore down as if becoming several hundred pounds heavier instantly. As the drunk thugs scrambled to take hold of him more firmly, Falcon slammed his right boot into the foot of the thug to his right, and thrust out with his elbow into the abdomen of the thug on his left. His right arm jerked back as he reached for his combat knife, the elbow hitting the stomped-on thug in his upper chest and knocking the wind out of him.

 

With a fluid motion, and before the other militiamen could turn away from Lady Jaye, Falcon had his twelve-inch combat survival knife out of its sheath. He turned to face his guards and plunged the knife into one of them at chest level, thrusting it into the area where his heart would be over and over. Bending his wrist slightly, Falcon withdrew the blade and cut the thug’s throat with the saw-toothed upper portion of the knife steel. The militiaman grabbed instinctively to protect his throat and tried to move out of Falcon’s way, but his drunkenness prevented his legs from working right and he fell flat on his face.

 

The other soldier, doubled over in pain from the foot stomp and elbow to the lungs, tried to catch his breath when Falcon’s combat knife plunged right into the side of his head, piercing his skull through the aural passage and becoming embedded in the thug’s gray matter from the sharp momentum of the knife thrust. Falcon shoved the writhing and twitching militiaman to the dusty ground while he bled out and died.

 

By now, the surprised guttural grunts of Falcon’s former guards had alerted the other five men, and Jaye acted swiftly. She bent at the waist and let her hands slide off the wall and to her sides. Thrusting out her rump, she was able to bump the distracted Fedayeen leader, whose hands were still on his crotch, and he staggered backwards to regain his balance.

 

In the blink of an eye, Jaye’s arms swung up behind the two men that were trying to undress her, and she grabbed each one by the back of their necks. Standing erect, Jaye used all the strength she could muster to shove the two thugs’ heads into the brick wall and stunned them. While the remaining two militiamen turned to take Falcon on, Jaye withdrew her own combat knife with her right hand and stabbed it across her body into the Fedayeen on her left. The knife dug into his ribs, and she twisted it around to do more damage while shoving the thug to the ground with her left hand. She then pulled out the knife, and her right elbow hit home in the ribs of the other man, who fell to the side in pain.

 

The two Fedayeen who weren’t busy holding onto Falcon or Jaye had turned on the Special Forces Lieutenant, hell bent on revenge. One of them lunged directly at the Lieutenant while the other had his eyes on the stack of AK’s against the alley wall. Falcon deftly ducked aside as the first dove at him and the thug tripped on the dying body of his comrade lying on the ground. Unable to regain his footing, the man fell out of the alley and flat on his face in the busy market sidewalk.

 

Falcon intentionally had ducked in the direction of the assault rifles, and beat the second thug to them. Picking up the first weapon within reach, he swung it at the Fedayeen fighter’s head and the wooden stock connected with a hollow thump. The thug’s body twisted in mid-air and fell to the alley floor, bleeding from a massive impact wound to the side of his head.

 

By the time the second man had gone down, the first was shakily getting back on his feet. Falcon’s hands moved instinctively to fix the AK-47’s spike bayonet to the end of the barrel, and when the first man charged again, the rifle was thrust right at him as an extension of Falcon’s long reach. The thug was unable to dodge the bayonet and ended up impaling himself on the sharp bladed weapon.

 

The leader was rather discombobulated after being jostled out into the open, since he also had had the most to drink. Slightly confused, he took in his situation. Falcon had all of the squad’s weapons under his control, and was blocking the only way out of the alley. Lady Jaye had her bloody combat knife in hand, and her eyes burned like she wanted his blood to spill for sure.

 

“I want this one, Lieutenant,” Lady Jaye said with an angry growl as she stared at the Fedayeen squad leader. “This dirty fuck is mine.”

 

The leader groggily reached for his own combat knife as Falcon pointed the barrel of the AK-47 in his hands towards the sky and rested the stock in the crook of his arm. Lady Jaye crouched in a wide-legged combat stance and licked her lips hungrily. Fear quickly spread across the Fedayeen soldier’s face when he realized that he was up against a very angry, trained warrior, and a woman notwithstanding.

 

“Don’t even try to beg, you arrogant asshole,” Jaye snarled, closing the distance between herself and the squad leader in cautious, balanced steps. She always stayed at a crouch, ready to strike in a heartbeat. He tried to back off, and felt Falcon shove him back into the alley from behind. “It’s going to be a pleasure eviscerating you for this little stunt you pulled. I promised you we’d teach you a lesson if you fucked with us.”

 

Agitated with fear, the squad leader slashed defensively at Jaye’s chest, and she simply bent a little at the waist to avoid the blade. The knife whizzed by the front of her body, missing it by inches. Jaye’s counter-thrust was more accurate, slashing through the cheap fabric of the leader’s army uniform and cutting deeply into his abdomen. The leader dropped his knife and clutched at the long gash in his midsection, trying to keep his guts from falling out onto the dirty pavement as he bled.

 

Lady Jaye picked up her body armor, Desert Scorpion helmet and shaded dust goggles and put them on quickly so that no onlookers could identify her face from among the other Cobras that were out and about. Falcon did the same, obscuring his face with the desert combat gear. As they left the alley, for a parting shot, Jaye shoved the squad leader out of her way with a push to the head and he fell to the alley floor crying in anguish.

 

A crowd of onlookers did begin to form as murmurs outside the alley spread about the fight between the Fedayeen squad and the Joes. They cheered when Falcon and Lady Jaye walked away, leaving the broken and torn Fedayeen thugs behind. “At least we have seven less of them to bother the innocent people,” Jaye commented to Falcon as they strode on to continue their mission.

 

***

 

G.I. Joe Barracks, “Officer Country”

King Khalid Military City, Saudi Arabia

0900 hours, local time

 

Crypto sat at the metal desk provided for his base living quarters with his feet up, leafing through a number of S-2 reports that had filtered in from the front lines and CENTCOM during the overnight watch in the command center. He was supposed to be preparing a routine morning briefing for one of his subordinates to deliver to General Tomahawk, but instead Crypto sipped at some mess hall lifer’s juice and searched for a special folder he had been waiting for all night, pertaining to Camp al-Shu’a.

 

A loud rapping sounded at the entrance to Crypto’s mini-apartment, and the officer reluctantly set down his intelligence reports and imagery packets to answer the door. “Who’s there?” he asked, standing about three feet back from the panel door.

 

“It’s Duke, Crypto.” The voice of the first shirt boomed from the hallway. “Colonel Courage and General Tomahawk need to have that briefing on Falcon’s discovery. And I mean, yesterday!”

 

Crypto covered the final three feet to the door in one stride and opened it up. “Duke, I’m looking for some of the material now. It was supposed to come in with the morning reports. Otherwise, I don’t know what to tell the general about the place.”

 

Crypto walked to a heavy steel safe and covered the combination dial as he spun it, opening the heavy door and stuffing some sensitive materials from CENTCOM J-2 inside. While he worked, Duke added, “The general wrote you a blank check last night when the transmission came in. He wants an analysis of the place, and if we need to infiltrate, a plan of action, fast. I was asked to remind you again at morning chow.”

 

“I know,” Crypto said. “I didn’t go to sleep last night, since I’ve had to get on the phone and wrangle up KH-11 and KH-12 satellite taskings from the NRO. I even tried a back-channel with an Airedale captain I know over at the Hafr-al-Batin Strike Ops intelligence shop. I’ve also been haggling with the Air Force to get a tactical photo-recon sweep sent over, with no joy. The slimy buggers are claiming a hostile air environment for their Tactical Recon F-16’s. I was lucky enough to have Keel-Haul’s alert crew on the U.S.S. Flagg send over a Sky Striker with a TARPS pod aboard. But it’ll take time for those photos to get out of the lab and wired over here.”

 

“Well, do your best,” Duke said, picking up Crypto’s Styrofoam coffee cup and swirling its contents about like they could tell the future. “I’ll stall a bit more, and send Scarlett by to help you put some ideas down. But we need to know something by the ten-hundred scheduled briefing, and Tomahawk wants you, Scarlett and Chuckles in that session, in person. If you can’t come up with a no-bullshit appraisal of the site, I wouldn’t be surprised if a team gets sent in to eat some dirt and send back some live HUMINT.”

 

“I’ll consider myself warned, Duke,” the intelligence analyst said, waving into his quarters an enlisted messenger from an Air Force intelligence shop at Hafr-al-Batin Air Base that Crypto shared data and discussion with regularly. The messenger was delivering several large envelopes similar to what might contain enlarged and digitally-enhanced satellite imagery.

 

“See you at ten-hundred,” Duke said, leaving the room and walking down the hallway with a loud clip-clop from his leather combat boots.

 

***

 

Fakesh Bazaar, al-Shorjah Souq Market, Baghdad

0908 hours, local time

 

Rock & Roll and Zap sipped at plastic bottles of purified water and walked near an open-air arms dealer’s stand when both their TDC’s rang at once. The pair of Joes ducked into the relative shade of the stall’s rainbow-colored fabric tent to answer their phones.

 

“Now that was odd,” Zap said out loud for the benefit of any onlookers. “I got a hang up. How about you, Sergeant McConnell?”

 

“Same here, Sergeant Melendez,” Rock & Roll replied. “I don’t get it either.” On an unspoken signal, the two men began scanning the area much more carefully with their eyes.

 

A lady wearing traditional Muslim garments, complete with veil and head coverings, approached the two soldiers while they feigned interest in an array of AK-74 assault rifles of many styles and a very eclectic mix of handguns piled neatly next to them.

 

The lady quietly approached the soldiers, carrying an M-65 field jacket made of US woodland camouflage material. She bowed her head slightly before addressing them. “Good day, brave soldiers. I am the proprietor of this establishment. How may I help you?”

 

Rock & Roll noticed that the woman had taken the time to bring over a distinctly American piece of gear to fold and lay on one of her stall’s tables. “I assume much of your stock is from the rebellion in Afghanistan. I can tell from the Russian manufacturing stamps. But where did you get American gear?” The Joe machine gunner tapped a finger on the TDC that hung from his web belt like any civilian would carry their cell phone. He also made sure that the American desert camouflage t-shirt he wore under his Desert CLAWS uniform was visible by subtly unzipping the combat suit and holding the cold water bottle against his chest.

 

“I have connections,” the woman said. “But these are just examples. I can tell you seek quality goods. Please step into the back where you may cool down better and have a look at something that might interest you more than these trinkets.”

 

Sergeants McConnell and Melendez regarded each other with a nod as the woman disappeared behind a beaded curtain into a private sitting area of her tent. Checking to make sure they weren’t being watched themselves, they followed her inside.

 

Zap took out his TDC before ducking past the beaded curtain and took off the battery cover, flipping the hidden switch under the battery to engage his unit’s secure tracking mode.


	17. Super Gun

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Fourteen

Super Gun

 

***

 

King Khalid Military City

G.I. Joe Command Center (S-2 Section)

24 July, 2002

0900 hours, local time

 

Glyph straightened his Marine-issue camouflage BDU’s before he swiped his photo identification card in the card reader outside the S-2 work area. The encoded magnetic strip passed his information to the security control computer in the command center, and the door to S-2 unlocked with a hollow click.

 

Opening the door and walking into the Secure, Compartmentalized Information Facility, the Marine sat at his workstation and logged into it with the ID and password he had selected with Mainframe. As the computer terminal loaded the remnants of the previous day’s work, Glyph set down a civilian-made knapsack, and withdrew a stack of printouts and a small black box about the size of a tin of ‘Altoids’ mints, with an Ethernet wire hanging off one end.

 

Once the computer settled down, Glyph reached behind the unit and unplugged the Ethernet line that ran from the wall and attached it to the black box, taking the box’s built-in wire and placing it into the computer’s jack. A small, green LED in the box glowed when the computer automatically re-connected into the Command Center’s network of computers.

 

The black box was one of the latest brainchildren of the corps of Cobra Techno-Vipers. It was a miniature hacking aid, which copied every incoming and outgoing piece of data and encrypted the material, sending it across the secure network connections of the host system to a dummy internet mail address at dsm.arbcotelecom.mil. The DSM prefix, which stood for Defense Systems Mailer Protocol, tricks secure military computer networks into thinking they were sending into (or receiving from) a bona fide military destination, and the MIL suffix bypassed more traditional domain name checkers within the Department of Defense’s internet security systems.

 

ARBCO Telecom, of course, was a Cobra front company, which routed all of the computerized intelligence data to the Cobra Military Mission in Baghdad, where the Baroness’ SIGINT specialists de-encrypted the information and tried to make meaningful reports out of it. They also planned for the black box to be used to transmit back false information to Glyph in an effort to cause Joe Teams to be sent out on bogus missions and keep them from being focused on attacking the Cobra command and control operations in the Iraqi capital.

 

Leaning back in his swivel chair, Glyph typed in a few commands to transmit the contents of a number of files on his computer and then lazily sipped at a Thermos full of hot chocolate while the black box did its work.

 

***

 

King Khalid Military City

G.I. Joe Team Barracks, “Officer Country”

0930 hours, local time

 

After Duke had left his quarters, Crypto returned to his desk, collecting the digital images Big Ben had transmitted from the Camp al-Shu’a perimeter and the satellite shots from all the Keyhole passes the officer could muster. He thoughtfully ran a large magnifying glass over several of the sequenced shots, tracking the movements of the equipment and larger pieces of material, along with the troops and work crews. Crypto tried to get a handle on the camp’s layout by tracking the soldiers as they moved about, clustering where they would start and end work shifts, or places where he could identify specific facilities such as a mess hall. Every so often, he would mark a small yellow tag with a black Sharpie and stick the arrow end against a shape that he wanted to identify.

 

As he worked on the photos, Crypto also typed furiously at his military-issued laptop computer, which was networked into the rest of the compound, as well as the outside world. The computer was running through some photo-identification algorithms via databases at the National Reconnaissance Office’s imagery production unit at Beale AFB, California, where the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing based its U-2R “Dragon Ladies” for global photo recon operations. The same search parameters were being run at the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), a Federalized parent agency that had absorbed elements of the NRO involving intelligence photography.

 

There was something about the layout of the camp that held some familiarity, thought the veteran Naval Intelligence analyst. Maybe it was the shape of the central concrete structures and the layout of the permanent facilities, like the utilities plants that rung a bell.

 

The sequenced satellite imagery showed heavy digging equipment being moved around from a marshalling area to the open spaces south of the concrete structures, and stock piles of pre-fabricated, curved sections of steel or some other hard metal, much like sections of underground sewer system piping, but much larger by five times or more. At least two heavy mobile cranes were also being unfolded and assembled, civilian types capable of lifting forty to sixty tons apiece. Camp al-Shu’a was undoubtedly a place where a lot of heavy construction work was taking shape.

 

Some of the initial photo-ID hits from the NRO database, combined with the officer’s own long experience, gave Crypto the first impression that the layout was typical of a hardened underground command post, designed to be able to absorb bunker-busting munitions and come out smiling. But the rounded metal sections were akin to specially-developed parts that the U.S. Air Force built to construct Minuteman ballistic missile silos. While a new type of Cobra Terror-Drome was most likely out of the question, a missile silo for WMD-tipped rockets wasn’t.

 

***

 

Scarlett had just finished trying on a new black combat suit that was being fitted to her dimensions by the Army Soldier Systems Directorate. It was the first production development of the Land Warrior combat suit system, and it was being fitted to a number of Joes to be proven in combat during Gulf II missions. When Duke had stopped into her room to send her out to chase Crypto to the 1000 briefing, the request had left her little time to change into a BDU, so she decided to give the newfangled thing an impromptu test for comfort and wear-ability.

 

The red-haired counter-intelligence specialist walked through the corridors of Officer Country, earning more than a few appreciative stares from the males passing her by. The Land Warrior suit was designed to be form-fitting and light, but made of ballistic fabrics interwoven with Kevlar for bullet resistance. Scarlett filled out her suit nicely, and she was even impressed that the fitter the Army sent found a way to put a lot of support in the brassiere portion of the chest piece. She wasn’t getting any younger, but maybe Duke would get a kick out of seeing her nice and perky.

 

Finally reaching Crypto’s door, she knocked quietly, waiting for the Lieutenant’s voice to come from the other side. Hearing no reply, she tested the door knob to find he had left it unlocked. Opening the door slightly, she called inside. “Crypto? Lieutenant? It’s Scarlett.”

 

Crypto looked up from his work and shouted to the door. “Come on in and take a load off, Scarlett!” When the sergeant entered Crypto’s quarters, modeling her new battle togs, an approving smile crossed the Lieutenant’s lips. “Nice gear, Scarlett. Is that the latest in Army-issue lingerie for the Special Operations up-and-coming?” The two Joes shared a laugh when Crypto motioned to an empty armchair. “So, what’s on your mind, Sergeant?”

 

“Duke asked me to make sure you don’t miss your appointment with General Tomahawk at ten-hundred,” Scarlett said, settling into the armchair and adjusting herself shamelessly in front of the analyst. “I’m willing to bet good money that there’s a reconnaissance or information gathering mission in one of our futures.”

 

Crypto turned a stack of photos he had already looked through in Scarlett’s direction, as she slid the armchair closer to have a good look. He had the stack of images marked and sequentially numbered; resting on a manila folder whose label read “Camp al-Shu’a”. Without raising an eyebrow, he said, “You’ll probably get tasked to put some eyeballs on this.”

 

Scarlett whistled when she saw some of the high-angle satellite shots of Camp al-Shu’a. “They sure are building something big here,” she commented. “What’s your call on this thing? You think ballistic missiles or WMD’s are involved? The General seems to be quite excitable over the place since Falcon’s team gave it a once-over on their way into Baghdad.”

 

“I’m not entirely sure myself,” Crypto replied. “The design elements that are visible above ground don’t reveal enough clues to give me an impression of what it is. More than likely, the giveaways have yet to take shape, but might over a longer time span.” The Navy Lieutenant flipped through another batch of sequenced Keyhole photos, showing that the earthmoving equipment had moved to lengthen the trench running south of the cluster of concrete structures. The large mobile cranes were beginning to lift the curved steel components and arrange them where groups of engineering troops were joining them into a broad tube, section by section. The pre-fabricated tubes were then being laid down on their sides, extending out south from the buildings along the trench. It didn’t look like the tube was going to be buried later on; rather, it was being laid onto a series of supports so that it would be parallel to the ground once it was connected to the main concrete structure at the camp’s center.

 

Crypto seemed to stop in his tracks and grabbed onto Scarlett’s hand as if to stop her from looking through the stack of photos he pushed her way. “Wait a second. I seem to recall...” When he realized he was hanging onto Scarlett’s hand, he withdrew sheepishly and apologized.

 

Turning to face the laptop computer, Crypto did a quick keyword search on the Internet and tapped into some engineering drawings from a German website. “Holy shit! They’re not trying again with this damn thing!”

 

“What?” Scarlett asked excitedly. “What damn thing?”

 

Crypto turned the screen of his laptop to face Scarlett. “The shape is very similar to a site the Iraqis were contracting German engineers to design. Some brain in a high-order physics think tank theorized that there was a way to take our current knowledge of ballistics one step further and design a gun that could fire a projectile across continents or small payloads into orbit. They called it a “Super-Gun”. Saddam had been obsessed with the idea at one time, even back when he was only the Iraqi Defense Minister. This was because he was hard-pressed in obtaining inter-continental ballistic missile technology or rockets in general and the Iran-Iraq war was flaring up, putting arms embargoes on the region. He wanted the means to hit Iran at first, and then later Israel or other neighboring countries without a missile. The original mastermind was killed in 1990, but others are rumored to have preserved the original designs and engineering data. I’ll bet Cobra’s theoretical weapons engineers are trying to finish the design work the Germans started when Saddam’s project first went belly-up.”

 

“What caused it to go belly-up the first time?” Scarlett asked. “Didn’t the idea work?”

 

“The Iran-Iraq War and preventive actions in the United States and Britain curtailed the conclusion of the master project,” Crypto replied. “The Iraqi government had to dump so many millions of dinars into defending their border and prolonging the war of attrition with Iran that they had to drop the program in its initial facilities design stages. They had some components and propellant fuels on hand, but some parts required for the largest gun’s completion were seized in European countries where they were being fabricated, before they could be delivered to Iraq. Smaller test models did get constructed and successfully fired, along with conventional artillery pieces that utilized the advanced technology. They just might be trying to build the big mama again, but now with Cobra’s help. They’re probably using Destro’s MARS organization to obtain any special machining tools and the large gun barrel needed to make the camp into an operating weapon system.”

 

Scarlett was about to jump to her feet and snatch all of the materials from Crypto’s desk that she could reach, when the lieutenant grabbed his forehead and exhibited a look of stark terror. “Come on, Lieutenant,” Scarlett insisted. “We have to bring this info over to General Tomahawk right away!”

 

“No, I can’t...” Crypto said softly. “It’s Operation Megiddo all over again! Cobra and Iraq in cahoots! The big conspiracy!” It appeared to Scarlett that painful memories of Baghdad really were scaring Crypto to death. Duke had mentioned Crypto’s prior service in covert operations in passing, and how large parts of his service records were marked as classified.

 

The Counter-Intelligence specialist gently reached for Crypto’s shoulder to calm him down. “It’s okay, Crypto. Easy does it. I can’t even hope to know what happened to cause your anxiety unless you’re willing to share the torrid details. But the team is here for you. Come on, let’s find Duke and the general and tell them what you’ve discovered, okay?”

 

Crypto nodded his head silently, reaching for a dented old dog tag that was lying on his desk. He rubbed it between his fingers nervously before calming himself and gathering up his things to follow Scarlett out the door to make the command briefing.

 

***

 

U.S. Naval Station, Manama, Bahrain

Personnel Branch Travel and Disbursements Office

0930 hours, local time

 

The Marine Warrant Officer fumed as he stood at the desk of the travel and disbursements petty officer. “You know what my situation was, Petty Officer Lemoyne! They just let me out of the base infirmary and I need to get to my command! I’ll bet the bastard who got into my quarters here is out to take my place over there and undermine my unit! I’ve done everything NCIS asked of me, and then some! Why can’t you get me a ride out to the U.S.S. Flagg or to King Khalid Military City? I know what my original orders read!”

 

“I’m sorry, sir,” the twenty-year old Petty Officer 3rd Class behind the desk replied. “It’s because of the situation and the fact that there is someone roaming around King Khalid Military City now with your assignment papers claiming to be CWO Kyle Morrow which is causing the computers such trouble when I try to book you out on standard transfer orders. The U.S.S. Flagg is listed as “locked out for special security considerations” inasmuch as transfer orders are concerned. You and the local NCIS agent will have to get together and get authorization for a special dispensation and we can speed you on your way. We need to be able to put in your routing destination unit or else the computer will spit out a rejection.”

 

“The destination unit is classified,” CWO Morrow said, with his annoyance showing in his tone of voice. “I’m a SCIF cleared cryptographic technician. The unit I work for is probably shielded from outsiders in so many ways I couldn’t even begin to count. But I’ll play it your way. Just pray to God that whoever started this game by bushwhacking me here isn’t making my outfit’s life a living Hell at the expense of my name and reputation.”

 

CWO Morrow, code name Glyph, stormed out of the Personnel office and stormed across the naval station’s campus. His destination was the Base Master-at-Arms’ security office, to locate the NCIS agent who had been investigating the incident involving him at the transient barracks.

 

***

 

Fakesh Bazaar, al-Shorjah Souq Market

Central Baghdad

0935 hours, local time

 

Falcon and Lady Jaye had ducked into a small café to use its lavatory and clean up a bit after their bloody encounter with the drunken squad of Fedayeen militiamen. As they were coming out onto the paved sidewalk between the rows of vendor stalls, Jaye raised her TDC communicator and showed it to the Lieutenant.

 

“Zap’s gone secure, Falcon,” Jaye whispered, as a red dot on a digital display with the letters “S-O-S” showed on the TDC’s information panel. The TDC had to be set to GPS mode, so that Jaye could track Zap’s blip.

 

“Okay, then,” Falcon replied. “Zap and Rock & Roll found the agent. You lead us to them, while I call Big Ben and Mutt and get them over there too. Once we get to where they’ve gone to ground, we’ll call General Tomahawk to organize our extraction orders.”

 

Jaye changed modes on her TDC and led the way to another aisle of arms dealers’ stalls. She paused outside the rainbow-colored tent where Zap’s TDC was transmitting from within. The intelligence specialist bade Falcon to stop and wait with a raised hand. “Let’s not just walk right in there, Lieutenant. Suppose it’s a trap?”

 

“I hear you, Sergeant,” Falcon replied quietly, locking and loading his automatic pistol, and keeping it handy in his holster. Lady Jaye did the same, making sure the holster was unbuttoned so her weapon could be drawn with ease. “Let’s wait here for our squad mates. I think I can see them coming from the other way. Even with a fresh Cobra uniform on, you can still pick up the kennel smell on Specialist Perlmutter!”

 

***

 

“I find it hard to believe the CIA was willing to endanger a young lady like yourself to gather information against the Baghdad regime,” Rock & Roll said quietly, sipping at a bottle of chilled water. “... Despite your having a local background, Agent al-Samir.”

 

“Actually, my given name is Jennifer Guilford, Sergeant McConnell,” the CIA agent replied with a smile. “Sherrica al-Samir was my mother’s maiden name. She was from northwestern Iraq but married an American oil worker and moved to the USA before I was born.” Agent Guilford collected some burlap bags that contained CD-R’s full of data from under her display tables, placing them inside wooden packing crates and covering them with some of the worn-out weapons she had had on display.

 

“I was educated in the United States but I also studied the Middle East,” Agent Guilford continued. “... And my mother taught me to speak local dialects like a native. When my father and mother were killed on the street outside of the World Trade Center, I was just graduating college. The CIA came to me, and I was more than happy to come here and avenge my parents.”

 

Zap sat facing the beaded partition, watching the larger part of the tent for potential trouble while Guilford finished packing up all the intelligence data and her compact laptop computer. Rock & Roll finished his bottle of water and helped the robed woman nail the weapons crates shut. “It’s really hard to tell how pretty you are underneath those robes,” the machine gunner said as a compliment.

 

Agent Guilford turned to face Rock & Roll and let her Arab veil fall to her shoulders. A flush of red colored her fair cheeks when she blushed at the soldier. Her face was framed in gentle waves of dark hair. Smooth and soft pale skin accentuated the fire in her hazel eyes. “You’re very kind, Sergeant McConnell. If we get out of here and I survive the CIA debrief back in Saudi Arabia, I just might have to track you down and show you how gorgeous I really am under these robes.”

 

It was Rock & Roll’s turn to blush, as the light-skinned agent put him on the spot. “I guess you still have a lot of your roughneck daddy in you...”

 

“Absolutely, surfer-boy,” the agent shot back with a mischievous grin. “That’s how I’ve been able to hold my own over here. But we have a job to complete first.” She turned to Zap and laid a hand on his shoulder. “See anything interesting out there?”

 

Zap shook his head no. “Nada, Agent Guilford. Not even a customer in the last five minutes. But our teammates should be here soon.”

 

***

 

Big Ben and Mutt joined Lady Jaye and Falcon in front of the weapons dealer’s stall where they found Zap’s signal, when a fast-talking man from the neighboring stall approached the group.

 

“Please, come in and see if there is something you like,” the salesman said, sweeping a flap from the shade tent’s entrance and motioning them inside. “My assistant is probably taking a break.”

 

Falcon followed the salesman inside the tent and looked around. He noticed in the corner of his eye that the beaded curtain at the far end of the large tent shuffled ever so slightly, as a tan-clad leg slipped out of sight. “Do you have any American arms here? My troops and I are going south on a special mission.”

 

“You are seeking to go behind the lines of our brave Iraqi soldiers?” the salesman sputtered, taken slightly aback at the request. “That is quite a dangerous proposition.”

 

“If you don’t have what I need, then we’ll take our business elsewhere,” Falcon said quickly.

 

“No, please wait,” the salesman said, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. “Please let me find my assistant in the back and we shall look for what you ask.”

 

Falcon was suspicious of the situation and the salesman. His combat senses alerted him to trouble. Before the man could reach the beaded curtain, Falcon had his pistol out and pressed it into the small of the salesman’s back, reaching out to grab the collar of his flowing robe with his free hand. “Quiet down and don’t make a move, if you value your life.”

 

Falcon whistled softly, alerting Mutt, Big Ben and Lady Jaye to slip into the tent. They all entered with pistols drawn. The lieutenant nodded to the beaded curtain and guided the salesman towards it, keeping the bulk of his body behind the Arab. The other Joes fanned out behind the tables of piled guns to cover their team leader.

 

***

 

“Something’s wrong,” Zap whispered. “I don’t think those Desert Scorpions are our buddies. They’ve fanned out with weapons drawn and have some guy at gunpoint.” Zap raised a loaded AK-47 that was on a stack next to where he crouched.

 

Guilford crawled to the opposite side of the beaded curtain and took a look into the main tent. “They have my backup agent. He was running the tent in the neighboring stall and is also the man who leads the spy network I’ve put together here. He’s my most trusted recruit in-country. Our cover may have been blown.”

 

Rock & Roll had located a serviceable RPK-74 light machine gun and threw several belts of Russian ammo over his shoulder. “Then we go down fighting. They can’t know that Joes have penetrated Baghdad. It will make our teammates’ missions that much harder.”

 

“No. Maybe I can distract them,” Guilford suggested. “You two take the sealed crate with the papers and CD’s and haul ass through the back of this tent. Use one of your combat knives to cut your way out while I run interference for you. If they want me, they can have me. But the information will still get out.”

 

Rock & Roll grabbed onto the CIA agent’s arm and held her back a moment, causing her to stumble to the ground. “I can’t let you sacrifice yourself like that. We all go home, or nobody goes home!”

 

Spitting some dust out of her mouth, Guilford’s hazel eyes flashed with annoyance, but she understood. She whispered to Rock & Roll with a slight hint of sarcasm. “Why, Sergeant McConnell, I didn’t know you actually cared...”

 

***

 

Before Agent Guilford, Zap and Rock & Roll could contest the matter any further, the beaded curtain was drawn aside and Falcon shoved the salesman to the floor ahead of him. The man stumbled on his robes and fell to the sandy ground with a groan.

 

Zap and Rock & Roll sprung into action, leveling their weapons at the head of the Desert Scorpion officer that followed the Arab. “Lay the iron down slowly and don’t be a hero,” Zap said menacingly. “You may have the _cojones_ to come charging in here, but you should also have the brains to know when someone’s about to turn your head into a fine red mist.”

 

Falcon lowered his pistol and slowly reached for his headgear and dust goggles. “Zap? Rock & Roll? It’s me, Falcon. We thought this was a trap, so we took precautions.”

 

Zap let the officer remove his headgear and the face matched the familiar voice. “Hot damn, Lieutenant! _Madre de Dios_! We almost decided on shooting our way out through you!”

 

“It’s a damn good thing that you didn’t then,” Lady Jaye interrupted, walking through the curtain and nodding at Rock & Roll, who was relaxing with the machine gun in his hands. “That pea-shooter of McConnell’s could ruin any lady’s day.”

 

Zap helped Agent Guilford to her feet and pointed in Falcon’s direction. “CIA Agent Jennifer Guilford, this is Lieutenant Vincent Falcone, our team leader.”

 

Falcon shook the female agent’s hand gently and smiled. “You can call me Falcon. It’s a pleasure.” He quickly introduced Big Ben, Mutt and Lady Jaye as well. “So, now shall we get down to the business of getting the hell out of Dodge?”

 

Guilford whispered a few words in Arabic to the gun salesman, and he scurried off. “I just told him to follow our plans. After I leave, he is going to maintain the cover of the weapons dealer and then break down our tents and disappear. He’ll keep my network of agents in hiding until I come back in-country and locate him. As for us, we need to call your boss so he can tell us where to meet our ride out of here.”

 

“Is it safe to contact KKMC from here?” Jaye asked, as Big Ben and Mutt took up positions at the main entrance to the tent, cradling loaded AK-47’s from among the wares, and each nursing a stack of RPG-18 disposable LAAW’s.

 

***

 

King Khalid Military City

G.I. Joe Command-Operations Facility

0945 hours, local time

 

“God dammit, where the hell did Crypto run off to?” General Tomahawk fumed, waiting for the Intelligence officer to arrive for the 1000 S-2 briefing. “I want to hear the skinny on this Camp al-Shu’a, pronto!”

 

“Sir, he’ll be here,” Duke interjected. “I made sure of that. Scarlett was sent to escort him to the meeting on time.”

 

“Good,” the general said quietly. “I’d hate for the lieutenant to go loopy on us early on in this campaign.”

 

“Loopy, General?” Duke questioned.

 

“Yes, Duke,” Tomahawk replied. “Part of the sealed portions of Crypto’s medical records had noted that he developed PTSD after a covert op in 1993 and left active duty as a result. I shouldn’t share the details beyond that, because the mission was a very ‘hush-hush’ job. This part of the world strikes a chord in the man.”

 

Colonel Courage knocked on the door of the conference room, opening it to peek inside. “General Tomahawk, we have a non-voice transmission from Falcon’s unit in Baghdad. The report reads, ‘Objective secured. Stop. Package ready to move. Stop. Requesting extraction instructions. Stop. Falcon. Stop.’ The checksum and prefix codes match up; it’s a bona fide message from the field.”

 

Tomahawk forgot about Crypto for a moment and rose onto his feet. “That’s damn good news, Colonel! Get the word out to the U.S.S. Flagg battle group and contact Cutter to prepare for pickup. Send Falcon his next set of instructions.”

 

“Yes, sir!” Colonel Courage replied enthusiastically, closing the conference room door behind him.

 

***

 

Floating on the Tigris River

Central Baghdad

0955 hours, local time

 

Cutter had maneuvered the _MV Hammurabi_ and its trash barge into a broad point of the Tigris, upriver from the intended shoreline where the tug was expected to put in for cargo loading. The veteran Coast Guard officer used the broad navigation channel to turn the tug and barge so that it faced southward when it pulled up alongside the Presidential Palace ruins.

 

Cutter’s TDC hung from a plain leather belt and began to ring like a cell phone. Clutch didn’t even look up from where he was working on a minor repair on the engine order telegraph. He disappeared below decks to work in the engine room without even noticing. The buzzing of the TDC finally caught the Coast Guardsman’s attention and he took a hand off the helm to answer it.

 

“This is Stone,” the lieutenant said. “Go secure.”

 

“Cutter, this is the Operations Center,” Colonel Courage said over the TDC line. “Your phase two of the mission plan is a go. Ground unit is being routed to the pre-planned pickup point. Acknowledge instructions.”

 

Cutter responded quickly to the request. “Read back is to pick up ground team according to phase two extraction plan after nightfall. Received and understood.”

 

“Very well,” Colonel Courage said, closing the transmission. “Good luck, Joes.”

 

Cutter hung the TDC back onto his belt and waved at the main deck to get the attention of Captain Shuma’ar. When the skipper returned to the pilot house, Cutter said, “It’s time, Captain. We’ve just gotten our hot potato.”

 

***

 

King Khalid Military City

G.I. Joe Operations Center

1000 hours, local time

 

Duke and General Tomahawk looked to the door of the briefing room as a soft knock sounded out. “Enter,” the two leaders said in unison.

 

Scarlett opened the door, carrying some of Crypto’s digital imagery folders, and set them down at the room’s head table. Crypto followed her in quietly, carefully setting down his laptop computer and a hefty stack of printed materials.

 

“Thank you, Scarlett,” Duke said. “I don’t know how you did it, but thanks for making sure this meeting started on time!”

 

“It’s my alluring personality, Duke,” Scarlett joked, winking subtly in his direction, and then sitting down in an empty seat to adjust the fit of her Land Warrior uniform.

 

Duke shut the door to the conference room and looked in Crypto’s direction. “So, Lieutenant, do you have that no-bullshit assessment we asked for?”

 

Crypto finished setting up his computer and displayed a series of images on the conference room’s projection screen. He explained his theory that the facility was being built to serve as the largest Super Gun project the Iraqis have begun to date and that with Cobra’s help, all of the prior failed attempts might soon give birth to a successful weapon in a very short time.

 

“Hold on, Lieutenant,” General Tomahawk interrupted, raising his hand to interject a question. “What sort of capabilities do these Super Guns have that interest Iraq so much?”

 

“The biggest advantage is long range weapons delivery that can support conventional binary propellant ammunition or rocket-assisted projectiles,” Crypto explained. “The astro-physicist who developed the original theory took our knowledge of modern ballistics to its greatest extreme and found the optimal balance to allow a very long and accurate shot. The theory has seen practical applications in weaponry in use by foreign armies today that far exceed the ranges offered by the best of comparable American artillery pieces.”

 

Crypto sipped a bottle of water before continuing. “Imagine the current state of long range weapons delivery. All the world’s militaries are pretty much in agreement that an intermediate range or inter-continental ballistic missile is the delivery platform of choice for nuclear and non-nuclear payloads that have to travel very long distances. We have also developed the means of detecting those missiles in flight, and intercepting them. Suppose that a payload is fired from a gun, expanded to many times a typical size. Conventional radars and ballistic missile defenses would be unable to classify the object in flight, and Patriot missiles would be hard-pressed to intercept it due to a radically different profile that our fire control computers wouldn’t recognize. Conventional counter-battery fires or direct assault on a completed firing site would be ineffective, since the shooting position can be nestled deep inside enemy territory where we couldn’t hit it, and can be surrounded by ground, air and ABM defenses of its own. We would be defenseless against a WMD fired using the Super Gun’s ballistic profile.”

 

Tomahawk reached for a plastic bottle of Acetaminophen, downing two tablets with a full dose of purified water. “Can you be absolutely sure what this facility is? Are the indicators that solid?”

 

Crypto hesitated a moment. “Well, General, you wanted the ‘no-bullshit’ answer, and here it is. I still can’t honestly be sure. While the indicators support the facts, they also support a number of other possibilities such as underground command bunkers or a covert transportation system like what was built in Libya some time ago. They could even be constructing a conventional missile silo, but doing the work in some new manner due to engineering constraints in country. The photos we have don’t provide enough hard evidence.”

 

“Then I need you to go in and get some hard evidence,” Tomahawk said without pause. “We’ll put together a team around you with a number of recon specialists and a security/assault element should you need to penetrate the base to try and collect design documents or any on-site computerized data. It might be a good excuse to try and extract other operational data Cobra might be protecting at the site.”

 

“General, sir, with all due respect,” Crypto stammered, becoming visibly shaken. “I don’t think I’m your man to lead an operation to scout Camp al-Shu’a. You need a trained shooter out there who can think on his feet. I’m just an S-2 analyst and haven’t done much in the way of downrange operations since nineteen-ninety-three.”

 

Duke’s face turned hard as stone, as the top sergeant switched into a mode of behavior he liked to call “motivation mode”. He leaped over the table that he sat behind and stormed up to the room’s head table, where he got into Crypto’s face and spoke loudly, as if they were the sole bodies in the room.

 

“I don’t want to hear another fucking word about your problems with going downrange, troop!” the first sergeant yelled, akin to spitting fire at the Navy Lieutenant. “I know what you can do when you put your mind to it, and I know that deep down inside, there’s a Real American Hero just looking for a clear way out!”

 

Duke’s steely blue eyes could have burned through the table, with the way he stared at the shaken lieutenant. “So don’t try to feed me some happy horseshit line about not being the man for this job! You’re an officer and you have a combat record! You’re expected to take the reins and lead from the front with your billet in G.I. Joe! Your men and women have to trust you out there! This outfit does not support rear echelon mother fuckers, not in the least! We know you’re a hard charger and we went to bat to keep you on active duty despite the head wound you got when we arrived. I want to see the moxie you showed in that KKMC roadway, when you engaged that Cobra Rattler in the open, all over again! You got me?!?”

 

Something in Duke’s ranting lit the fire in Crypto’s belly once more, and his expression became more firm. Tomahawk and Scarlett were moving to pull Duke away from the face-to-face he was having when Crypto stood up on his own and snapped to attention. “Sir, I’ll take that mission! It’s too important a problem for me not to do my duty. I promise to put the old ghosts behind me and try to see it through!”

 

“That’s the kind of talk I was hoping for!” Duke said, smiling. “I knew you still had it in you, kid.”

 

“From the on-site description Falcon sent, security there is fairly heavy,” Tomahawk said, passing out copies of data that Colonel Courage had collected in the Operations Center. “What sort of unit would we need to get a good look at the place?”

 

“It all depends on what’s expected of us,” Crypto replied. “We’ll need field-trained Intel experts, and if you definitely want us to hit the site, I’ll need someone to specifically work data retrieval. We’ll also need a team of shooters to keep our backs covered or to eliminate security.”

 

General Tomahawk turned to Duke, who was pulling out a duty roster. “Who do you think we should assign for this job, Master Sergeant?”

 

“Some of the critical positions on the team have already passed through their desert familiarization training with Dusty,” MSgt. Hauser replied, laying two sheets of computer printouts down on the general’s table. “I’d recommend ten Joes for the mission, at least.”

 

Duke had drawn on the sheets with a yellow highlighter and explained as he went. “Chuckles and Sneak Peek are both good all-around intelligence-gathering specialists, and Sneak Peek’s qualifications as a recon trooper and Army Ranger are ideal. Sergeant Hacker, one of our newer men, would be the data retrieval expert Crypto mentioned. There’s another rawhide that just got cleared by Dusty by the name of Waveform. He’s an expert in using the REMBASS battlefield surveillance equipment, and would complement Sneak Peek in getting a good visual and electronic profile of the place.”

 

Tomahawk nodded. “That covers the information requirement. How about a security team?”

 

Duke highlighted a few more names and continued. “Walkabout’s SAS training and practical experience in the Australian Outback makes him a perfect leader for a desert mission, in terms of being able to making sure the unit survives out there. Grunt, Footloose, Hit & Run and Repeater are all veteran troopers, and Repeater would be able to pack the supporting firepower the security team would need. Low-Light just vetted a new infantry sniper, Sergeant Sure-Shot, who transferred in from the Special Ops community, and suggested that he go on a mission right away to get some combat experience in our world. I’d recommend those six as the security team.”

 

“What about me?” Scarlett asked. “I want in on this job!”

 

“If you’re volunteering,” Tomahawk replied. “Then I don’t see any reason to refuse you. Since I want Crypto to go on-site and get a good look around, maybe you should go and assist him.” The general faced Crypto once more. “You’re going to be the senior man of the team, Crypto. You exercise whatever judgment you need, to accomplish the objective. But we need hard evidence that Camp al-Shu’a is a major threat to our forces or the friendly countries in the area, Cobra involvement or not.”

 

“Aye-aye, sir,” Crypto replied. “Scarlett, Walkabout and I will hammer out the details of the insertion and what we would need for the recon. Shall we say wheels-up in twenty-four hours or less?”

 

General Tomahawk nodded his approval. “Yes. Plan for an insertion after nightfall. Let’s get it done, Joes! Dismissed!”

 

***

 

King Khalid Military City

G.I. Joe S-2 Section, SCIF Work Area

1200 hours, local time

 

Many of the Joes had left the S-2 section’s secure compartmented information facility to have lunch at the mess hall. The SCIF was as empty as a morgue, save for Mainframe and Beach Head, who had quietly gained access to do a random security sweep.

 

“Come on, let’s get this yeoman duty over with, already,” Beach Head insisted, tapping his combat boot softly on the linoleum tiled floor of the windowless work room. “I have rawhides to chase around and Joes to PT into the fucking ground!”

 

“These things can’t me rushed, Beach Head,” Mainframe replied, studying a series of traces from one of his own custom software programs. After he recorded the traces for comparison against his archives of normal signal and computer traffic, Mainframe motioned for Beach Head to accompany him as he began a physical security check of the room.

 

The two Joes searched around the servers and workstations, poking around the hardware and looking for anything out of place. Beach Head followed Mainframe’s lead, but not really knowing what to look for.

 

“Mainframe, I really don’t get what we’re trying to find here,” the Ranger growled with frustration. “Is it ABSOLUTELY necessary to drag me in to do these damn sweeps?”

 

“You’re here as a deterrent, Beach Head,” Mainframe replied, his voice coming from behind a large computer server cabinet. “The support personnel and new recruits represent a potential leak, and General Tomahawk told me to be as paranoid as I felt it necessary to make sure Cobra doesn’t find a way to fuck up our intelligence information or communications. This area is vital to keeping the teams downrange connected, especially if you’ve got a squad under fire with your backs against a wall and you need help yesterday. If our radios or TDC network goes down, then your asses would be in a sling and we wouldn’t be able to help you.”

 

“I see your point,” Beach Head said. “So a senior Joe needs to come around occasionally in case there is a mole or spy that tries to impede you from finding something out.”

 

“In a nutshell,” Mainframe replied, closing up the cabinet doors of the main computer servers so they looked like they had never been inspected. “Let’s move on to the computer terminals and then we’ll be done with the random sweep and you can get back to kicking rawhide ass.”

 

The servers had been enough inspecting for Beach Head. He yawned and leaned against the wall near the main entry door to the SCIF, which was nearly as heavy as that of a steel vault. He didn’t need to act bored for too long, because Mainframe called him over to where he was working with an excited voice.

 

“Beach Head,” Mainframe called out. “Come over here, we have a problem.”

 

“What the hell is it, computer-man?” the Ranger asked, reaching for his automatic pistol in case of trouble.

 

Mainframe produced a small black electronic box from behind a workstation. “I found this behind Glyph’s user terminal. I’m gonna put it on my test stand and scan it off the main network to see what it does.”

 

“A computer thingy is a computer thingy to me, Mainframe,” Beach Head said. “Do what you gotta do.”

 

“You don’t understand, Beach Head. This is important,” Mainframe insisted. “I built the networks in our Operations and Intelligence sections personally. I can almost remember exactly every little setup and installation like a huge wiring diagram. This little ‘thingy’ of yours was not something I installed. And we control the comings and goings of the electronic equipment in this room very tightly. I think we’ve been penetrated.”

 

“What do you propose we do?” Beach Head asked.

 

“We have to report this to Tomahawk for sure, after I analyze this piece,” Mainframe replied. “And we need to do a full security check on Glyph, trace him all the way back to when he joined the Marines for any sort of security problems or criminal records. We should look at the reports from when he was vetted for his clearances and if there were any recent incidents with his name on them between CONUS and here...”

 

“And if he comes up clean?” Beach Head asked.

 

“Then we lock this area down and sweep everybody in S-2 one by one,” Mainframe said, bagging the contraband electronic device for safe keeping. “A Cobra agent would be very unlikely to penetrate our unit and then go downrange with a mission team. He or she would stick around as long as possible undercover. Our best chances of finding the culprit lie in being diligent right here.”

 

Beach Head studied Mainframe’s serious face for a moment and swore to himself. “I might be willing to bet my money on Glyph, come to think of it. He’s been rather undisciplined compared to the personnel reviews I’ve read on him from his former commanders. Shit. I hate more headaches.”

 

“We’ll start looking at the problem quietly, Beach Head,” Mainframe insisted. “We can’t afford to spook the mole, whoever it is. Let’s worry about getting a trace on this device and decide whether to put it back in place before someone notices I’ve acquired it.”

 

Mainframe pocketed the small device in its static-free bag and the two men quickly left for Mainframe’s electronics workshop, locking the SCIF door behind them.

 

***

 

Fakesh Bazaar, al-Shorjah Souq Market

Central Baghdad

1300 hours, local time

 

“Did you get our orders?” Rock & Roll asked as he and Zap brought sacks of food back to the army truck the Joes had brought into the city and handed the meals out to each member of the team and Agent Guilford.

 

Falcon frowned as he studied local city maps that were among the deceased truck driver’s paperwork. “Yeah. Our orders are to move to a small industrial complex along the Tigris and find a defensible spot to cool out. Then we have to switch on our TDC’s in secure mode so our pickup can locate and rendezvous with us. The place looks like it was chosen so that a land, air or water extraction could occur. But they didn’t say how.”

 

“Fucking REMF bastards!” Big Ben swore, spitting a wad of chewed-up lettuce onto the ground. “How the hell will we know the people that come barging into our hiding place in the middle of the God-awful night are friendlies?”

 

“Calm down, Sergeant Bennett,” Falcon hissed. “We’ll have at least one, maybe two four-hour check-ins on the TDC before we leave. I expect they’ll feed us more tactical information when we’re at the extraction site, so that we don’t expose our pickup if we get captured. They’re thinking ahead.”

 

Big Ben shook his head. “I still think it stinks, Lootenant. Just running the variables through my head leaves a bad feeling in my gut and a serious case of the willies. I don’t want our pickup to just fade away into the night if we get ambushed by a fucking Iraqi security unit. I don’t want the seven of us to be unzipped and flapping in the wind with no means of escape because some fucking ops planner safely behind the lines in KKMC thought this place was ideal and we end up boxed in instead!”

 

“I hear you, Bennett,” Falcon said, his face becoming red. “But you’d better quit spewing that noise and bad attitude. Don’t make me remind you what your mission and duty are. The seven of us are expendable, if that’s what it takes for the Joes to be victorious against Cobra. We might have to fight a losing battle in this industrial park in order to save American lives elsewhere. Just you remember that!”

 

After Falcon’s outburst, Big Ben calmed himself and focused on finishing his food in silence. Once the group determined that no one was hunting for them specifically, especially since a number of Cobra security policemen had been called to investigate what had happened to the squad of Fedayeen militiamen, they boarded their army truck and drove out of the marketplace.

 

***

 

Jabbur Industrial Complex

South-Central Baghdad, near the al-Muradiyah section of the city

1430 hours, local time

 

In order to cover the team’s movement from possible pursuit, Falcon had Big Ben drive in the opposite direction of their intended route of travel before following a long route to the nearly abandoned industrial complex that was spread out along the southern bank of the Tigris River.

 

Nestled in a curve of the broad waterway, the Jabbur complex still had Iraqi work forces occupying manufacturing plants and smaller concrete buildings housing machine shops and other minor operations. However, the grisly business of limited American and British bombing raids against strategic targets had brought significant attention to the larger factories, which fell prey to F-117 Nighthawk and B-2A Spirit stealthy night missions or fast-moving F-15E Strike Eagle and British Jaguar sorties. Unexploded cluster munitions, iron bombs and 20mm cannon shells still lay where they fell, out in the open, strewn amid the buildings where the military EOD units feared to venture.

 

Carefully picking their way along the fringe road that led to the farthest and long-abandoned outbuildings of the complex, Big Ben had to bring the truck to a violent, squealing halt when a small child ran between piles of rubble to pick up a ball and scurry off.

 

“Damn!” Big Ben cursed. “Don’t those children know it’s not safe to be tussling out ‘ere? This place looks barely a step better than the surface of Mars on a good day!”

 

Agent Guilford, who was riding between Falcon and Big Ben in the truck’s cab, shook her head sadly. “Their mothers are probably working in one of the small machine shops trying to make a living. Many of the families live below the poverty line, despite what the central government would have the world believe. They have been following the UN’s ‘food for oil’ program, but finding hundreds of ways to turn to the black market for hard currency exchanges. And of course, none of what they acquire goes to the common people.”

 

The CIA agent ran a hand through her flowing brown locks and pouted. “The women that find jobs around here either worked in the big factories right up until the bombs fell, so they could feed their children, or the handful that are still around are in the machine shops, sweating at the jobs the men did for the local defense industry. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the children roaming around the ruins are now orphans from the last bombing raids here.”

 

Big Ben finally brought the truck to a stop near a crumbling former warehouse. “This looks like as good a place as any to knock off until our pickup shows up,” the SAS commando said. “Let’s set up shop and ‘ave a look ‘round ‘ere.”

 

The Joes piled out of the truck and were shocked to see a line of women emerge from a machine shop carrying crates, like it was a routine they had to follow as soon as an Army truck came into view. Many of them had children hanging onto the flowing fabric of their robes, their little faces etched with fearful looks. The women that weren’t carrying crates had clustered out in the open, tending to crying babies or nursing them. They seemed like a small community of their own, sharing the burdens of their jobs and caring for their children together as an extended family of necessity.

 

Agent Guilford snatched up handfuls of chocolate bars that had been part of the Joes’ MRE kits and ran to the column of laborers and children. She spoke quickly to them in Arabic, telling them not to load any of the goods into their truck, and that they were only in the area to survey the damage, not to transport their products out of the complex.

 

The looks on the children’s faces brightened when the agent crouched down at their level with a warm and caring smile, handing out the meager supply of chocolate bars as far as she could make them last. Many of the children encircled the young agent just to share smiles of thanks and hugs before fanning out to eat their newfound treasures.

 

Falcon smiled coolly at the adult women while he watched Guilford making friends with them and buying their silence with the candy and all the dinars she had in her pockets. He noticed that one child had wandered away from her mother and was unwrapping her piece of candy atop a large block of concrete that was leaning precariously at an angle.

 

The little girl was auburn-haired and had brown eyes full with the excitement of youth. If anything, she was seven... maybe eight years old. Her mother had dressed her in the local mode of clothing, according to the traditions of the Sunni faith and the tenets of local religious and secular law. Had the child been at a family reunion, like a young cousin of Falcon’s that he rarely saw, she would have been a heartbreaker and the family favorite, playing next to a warm fire on a cold winter’s night before Christmas...

 

As Falcon watched the little girl smiling with her sugary prize amidst all the devastation, he noticed a green-painted metallic fin protruding from under the slab. The lieutenant’s mind reeled. He knew the danger of the unexploded ordnance that had been dropped by the Allied planes, and he guessed the fin would undoubtedly be attached to a live bomb, with a live fuse. The girl’s weight on the slab was causing it to shift, and it was about to fall onto the bomb.

 

“Watch out!” Falcon shouted in Arabic, pointing at the little girl as he dropped his weapons and LBE gear to the ground with a clatter. He sprinted to the girl and snatched her up into his muscular arms while Agent Guilford, Rock & Roll and the rest of the team acted quickly to press the other shop workers back away from the danger.

 

Falcon turned after grabbing onto the auburn-haired girl, who immediately began to cry about being snatched up unexpectedly. He sprinted for the truck and ran to the far side of the cab, throwing his body over the little girl’s as he took to the dirt and waited for the blast.

 

Fortunately for all of the people in the open, the bomb Falcon spotted was a CBU, a cluster bomb unit. It did have two unexploded bomblets inside, which detonated when the slab fell with an explosive concussion. But the most anybody got from the resulting blast was a showering of concrete dust. After the blast sounds subsided and the wails of scared mothers and frightened children echoed across the area, Falcon looked where the slab once was. The bomblets had disintegrated it, and would have done the same to the little girl had he not acted so quickly.

 

Turning back to the little girl, Falcon picked her up in his arms and hugged her. She looked deeply into his eyes and saw why he had to scare her. Her lips spread into a beaming smile and she threw her arms around Falcon and hugged him back, resting her chin on his chest while he brought her back to her frightened mother.

 

The whole group of women flocked to Falcon’s side to check on the little girl. With words of thanks and grateful prayers in Arabic praising Allah for Falcon’s courage, the whole group of locals did as they were asked and faded away just as quickly as they had come.

 

“Imagine that,” Lady Jaye quipped, with a broad smile under her Desert Scorpion face mask. “Old Falcon, the skirt-chasing, arrogant SOB really has the heart of a hero. Won’t Jinx be impressed when she finds out about you?”

 

“That can wait,” Falcon replied, his expression becoming all business after the civilians cleared the area. “That detonation is bound to have drawn attention from elsewhere. It may have been reported to the local police or fire protection service already. I don’t want to be discovered here when an Iraqi patrol comes a-sniffing. We need to hide the truck and get hunkered down right now.”

 

***

 

1600 hours, local time

 

Captain Shuma’ar paced along the deck of the MV Hammurabi, watching the civilian construction apparatus that was loading rubble and debris into the trash barge for his crew to push down the river. He was startled for just a moment when Cutter tapped his shoulder and offered him a cup of coffee.

 

“A penny for your thoughts, Skipper?” Cutter asked while handing over a steaming mug. “Are you worried the loading will finish early?”

 

“No, Mister Stone,” Shuma’ar replied. “I am worried that they might finish late. I want to take advantage of the dusk to put your SEALS ashore in the Zodiacs. But for that to happen, we must shove off in two hours. Did your commander contact you again?”

 

“He did, Captain,” Cutter replied. “The ground unit is due to check in within the next fifteen minutes. But I don’t doubt they’re already in position and itching to get pulled out of that Jabbur complex. If I know the leaders of that team, they don’t like the idea of being boxed in to wait for their extraction at all.”

 

“Then we shall not disappoint them, Mister Stone,” Captain Shuma’ar said, setting the coffee mug down on a steel chain locker. “Spread the word quietly. Have Clutch and Shipwreck prepare to cast off the lines and stand by to weigh anchor. And tell Torpedo and his men to stand ready to launch the Zodiacs and take them ashore when we get south of Baghdad University.” The river captain pulled a pipe from his pocket and lit it, drawing in a deep breath and puffing out a cloud of tobacco smoke. “I have a bad feeling something will go wrong. Make sure your crew is ready for anything and keep their weapons loaded.”

 

“My buddies all know their jobs, skipper,” Cutter said with a nod. “They’ll pull this off by the numbers.”

 

***

 

1615 hours, local time

 

Six pairs of eyes peered out cautiously from behind piles of rubble and half walls as they manned defensive positions inside the old damaged warehouse. They had occupied themselves by quickly removing the Iraqi army truck from its parking spot near the fringe road and then transferring their remaining supplies and the mission data they were to protect into the warehouse.

 

To help the notion of the place still being abandoned, Falcon and Big Ben drove the truck out to the edge of the Tigris and found a nice, sloped section of riverbank where they shifted the truck into gear, tied off the steering wheel and jammed a wooden plank against the gas pedal. With a loud splash, the evidence of the team’s transportation to Jabbur sank into the soft river mud.

 

Rock & Roll was sitting with Agent Guilford on the dusty floor of the warehouse. The pair had found a sturdy section of concrete wall to lean against and were talking in hushed voices when Falcon crawled over to them. “Are you taking a break, Rock & Roll? Has your RPK-74 gotten too heavy to hold facing the enemy?”

 

Rock & Roll’s cheeks turned red from embarrassment. He hoisted his machinegun and rested it in a crack in the wall, sticking the barrel out to face where the enemy could come from. “Sorry, Lootenant,” the veteran gunner replied.

 

Lady Jaye and Big Ben crawled over to Rock & Roll’s position from their spots when Falcon motioned them to come closer. Once they were all clustered together, Falcon briefed them.

 

“I just made our check in call on the TDC,” Falcon began. “And here’s the deal. There’s a disguised boat on the river that’s carrying a Joe extraction team with a WHALE hovercraft. Cutter is running the WHALE and a four-man SEAL team is coming ashore to get us after dark. The boat is only two or three miles from us right now, but because of the day patrols on the river, they can’t move in our direction or put the swimmers into the water without drawing undue attention and giving us away.”

 

“Zap and Mutt are drawing first alert watch, and will shout out if anything comes our way. The rest of us have to collect and inventory the rest of the gear. Leave behind anything we can afford to, including the extra weapons, MRE packets, ammo and the crates the CD’s are hidden in. We have to be able to move lightly right onto a motor launch and get the fuck out of here. So, all of you get to it... Strip down our cargo and divide it up into manageable units that we can hump out with rucksacks. We don’t have lots of time left.”

 

***

 

1718 hours, local time

 

Although reports of detonations of unexploded American ordnance were becoming more and more common at the al-Muradiyah police station, the latest one had drawn the attention of the local Cobra advisor, who was issuing orders to mobilize a task force to go out and investigate.

 

The report was called in from an enraged machine shop manager in the Jabbur industrial complex, because he had seen his workers fraternizing with a detachment of Cobra troops right before the explosion, and that they were not the usual transportation soldiers since the women under his employ had brought the products he shipped right back into the shop and tried to give him a dog and pony show that the soldiers were out surveying damage.

 

The Cobra “advisor” assigned to the al-Muradiyah police force was a Crimson Guard officer, and by nature a very suspicious and paranoid individual. He literally snatched the report from the local police chief’s hands, much to the chief’s chagrin, and started barking orders. It was hardly the behavior of a security “advisor” whose orders were to let the police do their jobs and give them all the help they needed.

 

The Siegie seemed to ignore the police chief’s frustrated arguments about the advisor stepping on his toes and not letting the cops do the investigating. But after a few minutes of excitement, a Cobra detachment had been formed and the Siegie left the precinct house to lead the sweep personally. The chief of police didn’t mind the resulting quiet one bit.

 

With roars of gasoline engines, a column of six Ferret quad-runners, two Stinger jeeps and four Daimler-Benz “Unimog” light trucks roared out of the al-Muradiyah station’s parking lot and onto the access road towards a fuel truck depot to the north and the Jabbur complex beyond.

 

***

 

1725 hours, local time

 

The sun began to dip towards the horizon and started turning color to the early evening red-orange just before darkness followed. Many of the clean-up workers shoveling rubble at the Saddam Presidential Palace had already gone to their homes and the hope of a quiet evening meal free of bombing runs on the city.

 

The work crew foreman was the last to leave. He had brought a long pole with a satchel full of Iraqi cash, the agreed-upon payment for the captain of the _MV Hammurabi_ , and gave the tug and its crew a friendly wave farewell when the anchor was weighed. Steam and smoke began to puff from the tugboat’s stack as it leaned into the fully laden barge to push it down into the main channel of the river. Satisfied that his own work was finally done, the foreman gathered up his things and walked home.

 

“Bah! This cash will be worthless as soon as you Americans take this damn regime apart!” Captain Shuma’ar swore, throwing the satchel of money to the deck in the pilothouse and kicking it aside. “How little the arrogant government bastards know!”

 

“We’re steadying up on the main southbound channel, skipper,” Cutter reported, trying not to feed the captain’s tirade. “Shipwreck and Clutch, stand by your stations. Oh, and Shipwreck, get a message out to Deep-Six on the Whale’s hydrophone. Let him know the pickup operation is about to begin, and that we need him ready to react if trouble comes our way.”

 

“Will do, Cutter,” Shipwreck replied, exiting the pilothouse and sprinting to the bow of the _MV Hammurabi_. The Navy CPO and California native disappeared through a tiny hatch in the tug’s bow, which led to the hidden access hatch under the barge where the hovercraft was waiting for action.

 

The next knock on the pilothouse hatch was from Torpedo. Chief Warrant Officer Leialoha had come up to report that his four-man team was ready to go. Cutter glanced out the starboard side windows of the pilothouse to make sure the pair of Zodiac rigid-hull inflatable boats had been brought out from their storage lockers and prepared correctly.

 

The SEALS had already inflated and lowered the craft into the water, tying their mooring lines to fittings on the tugboat’s starboard gunwale so they could cast off silently when the _Hammurabi_ rounded the last bend in the river and set course for the Jabbur complex. Each Zodiac would be manned by two men of the landing party, and could carry back slightly more than half of the people and cargo they were picking up. Tracker, Wet-Down and Wet-Suit were still on the _Hammurabi_ deck, checking their M-4A1 carbines and making last-minute adjustments to their wet suits and the camouflage BDU’s they wore over the swimming gear.

 

Torpedo clapped Captain Shuma’ar on the shoulder and his mouth broke into a smile. “So, great river kahuna, any last bits of advice for me before I take those three rough-and-ready haole ashore?”

 

Shuma’ar looked at the Hawaiian native with a puzzled look, but got the gist of Torpedo’s question. “Just stay close to the shoreline and don’t make a lot of noise with those outboard motors. Keep your TDC’s on and go ashore as close to the team as possible. Shoot off a flare if you see any trouble and we’ll come in fighting to bring you all out. Other than that, good luck, sailor.”

 

Torpedo shook the skipper’s hand and traded a high-five with Cutter. “As we say in my native Hawaii, ‘aloha, a hui hou’. We’ll see you back here real soon.” The SEAL closed the pilothouse door and returned to the weather deck, ushering his teammates over the side and into the Zodiacs.

 

“Mister Stone,” Shuma’ar said, turning to Cutter at the helm. “Keep us steady in the channel. We should see the lights of Baghdad University to our port side as we lose the sun. As soon as the compass reads us heading due east, give the Zodiacs a flash of the starboard spotlight and then shut off most of our running lights so they can shove off without being illuminated by us. I’m going up front to do one last check on the fittings and explosive bolts on the barge.”

 

***

 

1730 hours, local time

 

Zap peered through a set of binoculars towards the end of the fringe road and reeled backwards with a start. “Hey, Mutt. I think our party’s about to get blown.”

 

“What makes you think that, Zap?” Mutt asked, picking up Zap’s binoculars and looking out in the same direction.

 

“Look over where the machine shop is, where that dud bomb went off.” Zap pointed to the concrete building where Falcon had saved the life of one of the workers’ daughters. “There’s a Cobra patrol pulling in, and it looks like they’re loaded for bear.”

 

“Son of a...” Mutt began before reaching for an AK-74 and checking for a full magazine. “Go tell Falcon, pronto! We’re about to have a shit storm roll in on us!”

 

***

 

“Bring that shop manager over here!” called the Cobra Crimson Guardsman to one of the soldiers under his command. Within moments, an Iraqi civilian wearing dust-covered overalls and carrying himself with a pronounced limp was led to the Siegie’s Stinger jeep. “What is this all about?” the officer asked. “Tell me especially about the soldiers who were here surveying.”

 

“I know little of them,” the manager insisted. “Ask the women. They are unwilling to tell me the story. I was only observing the goings-on from my office window. As you can tell, I cannot move as quickly as I used to.”

 

“Very well,” the Siegie replied. He motioned for one of his soldiers to come closer. “Order the detachment to dismount. Set a security perimeter around the building and the bomb detonation point. Prepare the employees for a long night. No one leaves until we get a straight story out of them. I suspect something may be amiss.”

 

“As you command, Captain,” the soldier replied, snapping to attention and then running to the army trucks to get the other Cobra soldiers moving.

 

“Might I ask what your suspicions are?” the manager asked, hoping the Siegie officer would let him go home at least.

 

“There was a report of an incident in the al-Shorjah Souq Market,” the Siegie answered. “A squad of your Fedayeen were mauled by two Cobra Desert Scorpions. They left every man in that squad either wounded or dying. Now, I know Desert Scorpions don’t have consciences when it comes to human life. They wouldn’t avenge a case where the Fedayeen were taking liberties with the public, and if it was self-defense, there would be no survivors. It would make my career if I discovered American or British infiltrators or spies here.”

 

“Then I strongly suggest you do what it takes to get the information out of the women in my employ,” the manager suggested.

 

“Thanks. I will do just that.” The Siegie withdrew his service automatic from its black leather holster and took the safety off. He stroked the barrel lovingly as if he wanted badly to use it on an American operative or soldier. “As for you, since you had limited information to share, you are of no further use to us.” Pointing the pistol at the manager, he waved the barrel towards the road. “Take off. We shall let your workers go after they pass our security checks.”

 

***

 

“Can you see what they’re doing?” Falcon asked Mutt as he and Zap crawled silently into position to watch the Cobra detachment’s movements.

 

“Dunno,” Mutt whispered. “A man came out of the building where those women work and seemed very animated. I’d bet dollars to donuts he called the law when that damn bomb went off.”

 

“Hand those field glasses over, Mutt,” Falcon said, reaching for the binoculars. He raised the binoculars to his eyes just in time to see the Siegie dismiss the Iraqi man, climb out of his Stinger jeep, and fire his automatic pistol three times into the civilian’s back. The machine shop manager fell to the dirt screaming, and several soldiers decided to use the man as a human pin cushion, bayoneting him until he stopped moving.

 

Falcon dropped the glasses to the ground in front of him and looked like he was going to be sick. “Holy shit, guys. Those Cobras just killed a man in cold blood. I don’t think those women and children have a chance in Hell of getting out alive.”

 

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Zap asked, tapping a palm with his combat knife. “We gonna leave one last impression on these Cobra bastards before we go home?” Mutt let out a low growl to indicate his agreement with Zap’s question.

 

“I’d love to, but we have our orders, guys,” Falcon replied. “It’s a tough decision to make, but the mission can’t be compromised just for them. If they find us and we have to fight them, then I say we kill them all, but until then, we can’t move or our mission fails right here and now. They outnumber us at least three to one and have superior weapons. It’s not a chance that our orders allow me to take.”

 

“You can’t mean that we’re just going to sit here idly by and let them go at it with women and children, do you?” Zap asked, frustratedly digging at the loose sand with his knife. “And they die just so we can protect a stack of plastic disks?”

 

“Zap,” Falcon said, trying to quiet the soldier down. “I hate this too. But that stack of plastic disks is going to save a lot more lives. And getting Agent Guilford back to our lines with the info she has in her head can win this war before too many people die from it. Sacrifices and hard choices have to be made.”

 

***

 

1740 hours, local time

 

Torpedo and Tracker rolled quietly into the soft river mud and hauled their Zodiac RIB onto the riverbank. A few meters away, Wet-Down and Wet-Suit had done the same. Using hand signals, the two pairs of Joe SEALS checked their TDC units and the directional signal from Falcon’s team was clear. Each man in turn locked and loaded their M-4A1 carbines and slowly moved out into a copse of trees towards the wrecked warehouse where the ground team was hiding.

 

As soon as they cleared the tree line and began to move in earnest, a pair of high-powered headlamps illuminated the place where they had hauled the Zodiacs ashore, and the quartet of commandos heard the roar of motorcycle engines.

 

“Cover!” Torpedo hissed, training his weapon in the direction of the light sources. Two Cobra Ferret quad-runners were being steered right for the riverbank, followed by a third, which was parked on the roadway overlooking an open area leading to the water’s edge.

 

“Captain, this is Sergeant Lucas with the perimeter team,” the Ferret driver on the road said into a handheld radio. “We located an Iraqi army truck that was mostly submerged at the edge of the river. My men are investigating some suspicious shapes closer to your position.”

 

Tracker raised his M-4A1, fitted with a long-range sniper scope, and fired one shot towards the road. The Cobra sergeant barely heard the report of Tracker’s weapon, like the sound of a stick cracking from a distance. The SEAL’s shot flew straight and true, hitting the enemy non-com in the right temple and blasting a hole out the other side of his head.

 

When the other two Ferret drivers reached the Zodiacs, they turned to alert their Sergeant back on the roadway, finding instead that the man was slumped over the handlebars of his vehicle and the microphone of his radio was dangling from his hand. The men had no time to react, when Wet-Suit and Wet-Down sprung from cover only five meters from the Ferrets. Their saw-toothed combat knives flashed across the throats of the Cobra troopers, and the deed was done. The Joes quickly shut off the lights of the quad-runners and shoved the light vehicles, dead drivers and all, into the river.

 

Torpedo watched for Wet-Suit to give him a thumbs-up sign before tapping Tracker on the shoulder. “Okay. We’re clear again. Let’s get the lead out and haul ass!”

 

***

 

“Damn it! I was right!” the Siegie shouted triumphantly after hearing the report from Sergeant Lucas. He signaled to a pair of soldiers who were guarding the main door to the machine shop. “Bring one of the women out. Make sure you choose a mother and bring the child too. We’re going to find out what information these bitches are hiding, even if it kills them!”

 

The two soldiers nodded and disappeared into the structure, eventually bringing out the little auburn-haired girl Falcon saved and her mother. Both mother and child screamed in fear as the soldiers roughly positioned the older woman against the solid outer wall of the machine shop, tearing her clothing as she struggle to get to her daughter. Another of the Cobras stood laughing at the display, while he trained a rifle with bayonet fixed at the little girl.

 

With a dismissive gesture, the Siegie bade the soldiers to stand aside. He raised the smoking automatic pistol and held it to the mother’s head, stroking her cheeks with his free hand. “Tell me about the Cobra soldiers who were here before,” the Siegie said in smooth Arabic. “How many were there, and what kind of uniforms did they wear? What were they doing exactly?”

 

The mother babbled incoherently at first, muttering a prayer to Allah for salvation. She then insisted that she knew nothing of soldiers. “You’re lying!” the Siegie yelled, slapping the mother across the face with the back of his leather-gloved hand. “You and your fellow workers approached them! Tell me about them or your daughter shall pay with HER life!”

 

***

 

Lady Jaye low-crawled to the position Falcon, Mutt and Zap were occupying with her TDC in hand. “Falcon,” she said. “The pickup team is ashore. Torpedo is leading a SEAL fire team to us.”

 

Falcon looked into the eyes of his long-time teammates and then back at the situation unfolding in the distance. He decided that it was time to act. “Lady Jaye, you, Rock & Roll and Big Ben will take Agent Guilford and the CD’s and rendezvous with Torpedo. Take all of our loads, because Zap, Mutt and I have some unfinished business to attend to.” The lieutenant jerked his thumb at the Cobra patrol, and Jaye knew exactly what the plan was that the three men were cooking up.

 

“You know we can’t wait for you if this scheme of yours goes wrong,” Jaye insisted. “The Zodiacs are about two thousand meters due west along the riverbank. We’ll wait as long as we can. You three had better come back alive, you hear me?”

 

“Just go, and don’t look back,” Falcon urged, leading Jaye back to the gear and grabbing spare rifles and ammo from the pile of equipment the team had discarded at first. Jaye watched the eager lieutenant return to Mutt and Zap, and said a tiny prayer for them before following her instructions.

 

Torpedo’s fire team reached the river side of the warehouse quietly, and it was spotted by Rock & Roll, who lit up his angle-head flashlight three times as a signal that it was safe to approach. As soon as they got together, Lady Jaye, Big Ben and Agent Guilford arrived, tossing all of the rucksacks into the center of the group.

 

“Where’s Falcon, Mutt and Zap?” Rock & Roll asked, as the SEALS slung the extra rucksacks on their backs, forming up to move back to the Zodiacs.

 

“They’re going to leave a Cobra patrol in a world of hurt for messing with those Iraqi civilians at the machine shop,” Jaye replied, hiding her concern for the teammates. “We have our orders. Let’s move out now!”

 

Shaking his head in a befuddled way, Rock & Roll sighed and picked up his rucksack and machine gun, casting a last glance into the warehouse before sprinting out behind the others.

 

***

 

Falcon returned to Zap and Mutt with the extra weapons, setting them down with a stack of loaded AK-74 magazines. “They’re off, guys. What say the three of us give out a healthy dose of payback?”

 

Zap smiled evilly as he took two rifles, one for each hand. “Now, you’re talking, Lootenant. I knew you would do the right thing!”

 

Mutt clapped Falcon on the back and then selected two rifles for himself. “I’ll follow you anywhere, Falcon, even into the gates of Hell. Let’s kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out!”

 

“Wait for a second, guys,” Falcon said, unzipping his Desert Scorpion uniform and stepping out of it. “The Cobras aren’t going to survive this, and we need the psychological advantage. Let’s go in fighting with our regular BDU’s. I want those women to know who we really are.”

 

Mutt was struck by Falcon’s sense of honor, wanting the civilians to know that it was American troops who had saved the little girl and who were coming back to save them from the Cobras. He stripped off his Cobra uniform as well, adjusting the American desert camouflage he wore underneath and attaching a Velcro-ed American flag patch to his arm. Zap followed suit, and the Joes silently moved out of the warehouse to take on the Cobra infantry.

 

The Siegie was getting frustrated at the mother, who was stoically refusing to give up anything about Falcon’s team, especially since the officer had saved her daughter’s life. She endured repeated slaps across the face, then having her robes torn to tatters. Still she uttered nothing. Her daughter kept trying to turn away as the younger girl’s crying stopped, but tears still ran down her dirty cheeks.

 

“Hold the girl. Make her watch everything,” the Siegie ordered. “I want this to be an example to all.” He raised his automatic against the mother’s left temple and made like he was going to shoot her outright and then whacked her aside the face with the cold steel of the weapon. As the mother went down onto her knees, the Siegie allowed the two Cobra soldiers guarding her to lay their fists on her, battering the woman for her silence.

 

“Talk! Now! Or else!” shouted the Siegie captain, his Arabic becoming curt and abrupt. “Come on, woman! Talk or your daughter dies here!”

 

For all the mother had endured, she refused to break. She knew her daughter would learn the meaning of loyalty by her example. She spat in the Siegie’s face and then bowed her head, waiting to be pummeled again for defying the Cobra elite soldier.

 

“Oh, I’ve had just about enough of this shit,” Falcon whispered, watching the whole affair transpiring. The light had waned enough to require the low-powered floodlights on the machine shop’s exterior to come on. Cobra troops near the vehicles had also put on their headlights so they could continue to watch from their guard positions.

 

“You might want this then,” Zap offered, handing Falcon a Dragunov SVD sniper rifle that had been mixed in with Agent Guilford’s other weapons to disguise the CD’s she was smuggling out of Iraq. “It’s only got four rounds in it, but it should be good for something.”

 

“You’re a man after my own heart, Zap,” Falcon replied, taking the sniper rifle and cradling it in one arm. “When I take out the guards around the civilians, you guys charge in and sweep the area. Are you ready?” Mutt and Zap nodded eagerly, each man raising two loaded AK-47’s in their grasp.

 

The Siegie had had enough of the woman’s defiance and wanted to move on interrogating the rest. He stood the mother back against the wall and held his pistol to her head, using his free hand to make a two-fingered gesture to the guard holding her daughter. From behind, the Cobra soldier raised his rifle and pointed the sharp bayonet at the back of the little girl’s skull.

 

“Go, guys,” Falcon hissed, making a rapid judgment in his head as to which Cobra to kill first. He leveled the Dragunov, aimed, took a breath and fired.

 

The Siegie was dealing with the mother’s struggling and shrill cries of anguish when he saw the soldier by the little girl lose his head in a violent burst of blood and gray matter. Before he could plunge the bayonet into the girl’s back, the soldier’s assault rifle slipped from his dead fingers and fell harmlessly to the ground.

 

“Run, my daughter! Run!” The girl’s mother screamed out in Arabic for her little girl to seek a safe place to hide. But she barely got the words out when the Siegie pulled hard on his pistol trigger.

 

“No! God dammit! No!” Falcon shouted, firing his second round into the Siegie’s center of mass. The Special Forces man hit the enemy officer square in the chest, the momentum of the large-bore bullet kicking the Siegie back into the cement wall. But he couldn’t prevent the pistol from being fired into the mother’s head.

 

“YO, JOE!” cried Mutt and Zap as they charged out from cover, swinging their rifles at the two remaining guards. The area soon became a blur of tan and blue, as the two Joes and two Cobras struggled with each other, grappling to gain the upper hand. Mutt was able to end the life of his dance partner by using a sucker punch to the solar plexus and then impaling the soldier’s face on the spike bayonet from one of his AK’s. Zap was almost stabbed by his Cobra, but had ducked away in time and put a burst of ten rounds at full auto into the trooper, making sure he was down for the count.

 

Falcon reached the mortally wounded mother and balled up some scraps of fabric to rest her head on in order to keep her comfortable. The little auburn-haired girl knelt at her mother’s side, crying and bawling, her tears falling to the ground and mixing with her mother’s crimson blood as it flowed from the side of her head.

 

The driver of the Siegie’s Stinger jeep was reacting to the sight of three Joes charging at his patrol mates. Raising an AKSU-74 sub-machinegun, he leaped from his vehicle and was about to spray the entire group when Zap drew his combat knife and threw it hard. The sharp-bladed weapon dug through the driver’s uniform and in between his ribs, causing him to drop the SMG and fall to the ground, clutching painfully at his body. Zap stood over the soldier and put a burst from his AK right into the driver’s head, laughing as he fired.

 

Another of the mothers ran from the machine shop door and snatched up the auburn-haired girl, hugging her to her body as she cried. “Get her inside to safety and bar the doors,” Falcon ordered in Arabic. “My men and I will draw the soldiers away from you.”

 

The woman nodded. “May Allah grant your courage its rightful place for protecting our lives. We pray that good fortune shall be with you always.” She took the child and disappeared around the corner.

 

Zap and Mutt began firing in the distance, as they saw additional shapes running towards the skirmish from farther down the access road. “Falcon,” Mutt yelled from a crouch behind the Stinger jeep. “We have to draw them out now! It looks like there’s a whole platoon moving our way!”

 

Falcon waved at his two buddies to follow him. “Okay, Joes, fall back to the warehouse! We’ll leave them a nasty surprise inside!”

 

***

 

Later, inside the warehouse...

 

Falcon and Zap hurried to scrounge some supplies from among the material they had planned to leave behind for the extraction. They piled all of the other discarded items in a visible area in the center of the warehouse and then maneuvered larger objects such as jerry cans of gasoline from their truck and some loose slabs of concrete to make the center area look like an improvised strongpoint. They also positioned some of the spare rifles in places to make it look like they were being manned from under cover.

 

“Guys!” Mutt yelled from a vantage point near an exterior wall. “They took the bait! There’s roughly a reinforced section of sixteen to twenty troops coming our way!”

 

“Okay, then,” Falcon said, laying down a chunk of cement. “Let’s haul ass out the back and get ready to start the fireworks!”

 

***

 

1804 hours, local time

 

A Cobra Staff Sergeant raised his fist to bring the members of his detachment to a halt before they got too close to the dilapidated structure the Joes had disappeared into. He then wagged two fingers back and forth, and two fire teams of four Cobra soldiers apiece fanned out to approach the collapsed outer wall of the warehouse from different directions. The remainder of the section clustered near the non-com to await their orders.

 

“Did anyone see how many we’re up against?” the non-com asked his group. Most of the troopers shook their heads in the negative. “Okay. I thought I saw three, but they could have been a probe to lead us into an ambush away from those women and children. Hang back until the scouts take a peek inside. Then we’ll strike.”

 

Covering each other in a standard two-by-two formation, the fire teams of scouts reached the outer wall of the warehouse and huddled against any large wall sections they could find. Taking care not to expose themselves too much, the men peeked inside the darkened structure. After a few cautious glances, one of the more daring soldiers lowered a night vision device over his eyes, laid prone on the ground, and aimed the image intensifier inside the warehouse to get a better look.

 

***

 

“They’re at the southern outer wall,” Mutt whispered, trusting his combat senses and his old-fashioned Mark One Eyeball to spot the approach of the Cobra scouts. “They’re smart. They have scouts giving the place the once over before charging in.”

 

“Let’s give them an incentive, shall we?” Falcon said, tapping Zap on the shoulder. He raised an RPG-7V rocket propelled grenade launcher that was part of their cargo and aimed for one of the Cobra scout teams. Focusing right on the head of the NVG-equipped trooper, the bazooka man whispered “Clear Back Blast” to his buddies and then fired.

 

The bulbous rocket lanced from the launcher on orange tail fire, kicking back a cloud of chemical propellant smoke and hot gases. It crossed the warehouse’s main open space without hitting any protrusions, and exploded right on target. Screams from the hapless scouts echoed through the air as the high explosive round detonated among them.

 

***

 

“Cover! Now!” shouted the Staff Sergeant when he heard the characteristic whine of the RPG rocket flying through the air. The troopers all ducked for safety when the grenade exploded, throwing clouds of cement dust and torn flesh into the air. The rancid smell of flash-burned human bodies wafted over the air as the remains of the scout fire team became visible in the aftermath.

 

Most of the Cobra detachment had to take a moment to clear stinging eyes from the flying debris or shake a ringing out of their ears from the explosion. By the time the men had gathered their senses, many had to choke back an urge to throw up at what happened to their comrades. For the non-com in charge, the attack was a slap in the face that threw his caution to the wind.

 

“Fuck these American bastards! We’re going in to show them all who’s the boss around here!” The Staff Sergeant raised his voice so the troops could all hear his commands. Locking and loading his BG-1 30mm grenade launcher, the non-com shouted to all his surviving men, “Come on, Cobras! Let’s go kick some Joe ass! Leave none alive! COBRAAA!”

 

***

 

“That sure made ‘em mad,” Mutt said with an evil smile on his face. “Here they come...”

 

The Cobra soldiers wasted no time in swarming into the warehouse, firing their weapons wildly as they maneuvered. Eventually, the noise died down as the troopers realized that there was no answering fire from the Joes. Looking into the central storage area, the Cobra non-com leading the section spotted the signs of the hasty Joe strongpoint. With a wave, the azure-uniformed troopers descended upon it as if performing an old fashioned bayonet charge. Upon finding the strongpoint devoid of occupants, the non-com kicked at the strewn-about supplies and the carefully-positioned weapons and rubbed his chin in confusion.

 

“They took the bait,” Falcon whispered, raising his AK-74 to his shoulder and preparing to fire from his crouched position. “Mutt, start the fireworks.”

 

Mutt held two detonator plungers, one in each hand, and on Falcon’s order, he flicked off the safeties with his thumbs and squeezed hard on the triggers. The plungers generated an electrical impulse that ran along detonation wires to a pair of M-18A1 Claymore command-detonated mines hidden amidst the discarded supplies in the strongpoint. The Claymores exploded with a terrifying blast, throwing steel shrapnel and hundreds of tiny ball bearings into the air around the Cobra troopers. Out of the element of fourteen soldiers that had entered the warehouse, only two men survived the barrage and neither of them got away without sustaining injuries. The survivors ducked behind a large pile of concrete slabs, cringing at the screams of their dying comrades.

 

Falcon fired a few short bursts of 5.45mm into the air to keep the survivors’ heads down, while Zap brought his RPG-7V back to his shoulder, now reloaded with an incendiary round. “You ready to make them burn, _amigo mio_?” Falcon asked. Zap simply formed a toothy grin and nodded. “Then light the fire!”

 

Zap squeezed the firing trigger of the RPG launcher and aimed the grenade for the jerry cans of gasoline they had left in the strongpoint. The incendiary round packed about a quarter pound of military-grade plastic explosive and a large container of napalm and white phosphorus. When the round hit the fuel cans, the exploding Semtex in the warhead spread the fuel and warhead contents around, igniting it all into a giant fireball. The three Joes scurried away from the edge of the warehouse as the incendiary fireball burst through the remnants of the structure’s roof, roasting all of the Cobras trapped inside in an eerie hell fire.

 

***

 

1810 hours, local time

 

The group of Joes, with Agent Guilford in tow, covered the two thousand meters to the Zodiacs quickly, but not quickly enough. The three remaining Ferret quad-runners of the patrol sat idling next to the roadway, while their drivers searched around the boats. Torpedo spotted them lurking about first, and raised a fist to signal everyone following him to seek cover immediately.

 

Dropping into a prone position, Torpedo and Tracker crouched behind the cover of some trees and aimed for the Cobras just as two small explosions ripped the area where the boats were waiting. The red-orange flames from the incendiary grenades backlit the three soldiers as they scurried for their Ferrets. However, they didn’t make it. Torpedo gunned down two of the soldiers with perfect head shots, while Tracker got the third in the crotch as he leaped over a tree stump and brought him down hard. A second shot to the chest finished him off.

 

Lady Jaye and the rest of the Joes caught up to Torpedo and Tracker as they were getting back onto their feet. “What happened?” Lady Jaye asked the SEALS.

 

“Those damn Cobras beat us to the Zodiacs,” Tracker said, angrily throwing some foliage to the ground. “Our ride is toast!”

 

“Calm down, Tracker,” Torpedo said, patting his dive partner on the shoulder. “Let’s move back towards the warehouse. I saw a clearing we can use about half the distance back. We can dig in there and call Cutter. The Whale is our only chance now; we need a direct pickup.”

 

***

 

“Okay, everyone, fan out and form a perimeter,” Torpedo ordered, as the Joes surveyed the clearing that led all the way down to an open fording area on the river. From the direction of the warehouse came muffled thumps from the explosion Falcon, Mutt and Zap set off, and the veteran SEAL ducked for cover instinctively.

 

Torpedo glanced around cautiously for more Cobra troops after hearing the sound. “Lady Jaye, contact Falcon on his TDC and tell him to rendezvous with us here.” The group of Joes fell quiet as they spread out and assumed covering positions to await the Whale’s arrival.

 

When everyone was settled, Torpedo withdrew his TDC unit from a waterproof pouch and switched the device to two-way radio mode. He dialed up Cutter’s communicator and waited for the officer to pick up. “Shit-box, this is Tadpole. Shit-box, this is Tadpole; stand by for flash traffic.”

 

“You’re a real comedian, Tadpole,” Cutter replied tersely from the pilothouse of the _Hammurabi_. “I’m ready to copy flash traffic.”

 

“Tadpole has lost both of our rubber ducks, courtesy of the local fang gang, Shit-box,” Torpedo transmitted. “We could really use some of your hidden assets!”

 

“Message received and understood,” Cutter replied, nursing the throttle of the _Hammurabi_ to increase speed. He also displayed a local map on his TDC with a GPS fix on Torpedo’s communicator, in order to trace the location of the ground team. “The shit box is on the way to pull your tadpole asses out of the fire.”

 

As the Joe Team’s sole Coast Guard officer disconnected with Torpedo, his TDC buzzed again with an incoming two-way call. This time, the identity code belonged to Shipwreck, who was in the communications station on the Whale. Cutter re-opened his connection and replied quickly. “Cutter here; go Shipwreck.”

 

“Deep-Six checked in on the hydrophone,” Shipwreck reported. “Some sort of alert must’ve gone out and we’re about to bite into a big chunk of whup-ass. The SHARC is tracking a large, twin-screw Iraqi patrol gunboat, and Deep-Six suspects backup is being dispatched from a Cobra hydrofoil base northeast of Baghdad University that we passed on the way back here. He’s going to cut off the Morays if he can, but the patrol boat’s already between him and our position.”

 

“Son of a bitch!” Cutter swore. “Shipwreck, tell Clutch to fire up the Whale’s gas turbines and alert everyone else to man their battle stations! Prepare to shed our outer skin! I’m bringing the captain down and we’re cutting the tugboat free!”

 

After an acknowledgement from Shipwreck, Cutter hung up. Captain Shuma’ar had been walking around the weather deck and came into the pilothouse when he saw Cutter talking animatedly on his TDC. “Is everything alright, Mister Stone?” the captain asked. “You look like your comrades in Jabbur need help.”

 

Cutter frowned. “The ground team has Cobras swarming around them, and the Zodiacs were busted and can’t carry shit. The SHARC also reports Iraqi boats moving our way. We’re going to have to fight our way down the river. Come on, we have to cut the barge loose and get on the Whale!”

 

Captain Shuma’ar took the helm wheel and laid his hand on the throttle, increasing the power to the engines to the maximum. “Cut the barge free and attend to your friends in Jabbur. I shall attend to the patrol boat and give them a suitable distraction to cover your escape.”

 

Cutter made a face in protest. “Captain, the _Hammurabi_ is unarmed and you’re going up against an Iraqi fast patrol boat. Their weapons will cut the tug into matchsticks!”

 

Shuma’ar silenced Cutter with a dismissive wave. “That is a chance the enemy must be willing to make. The CIA selected me for this job for a reason. I am fighting for my people. Now go, and make good your escape with your friends. Hurry, Mister Stone, there is no longer time to argue. _Imsh’Allah_.” The skipper’s use of the Arabic phrase ‘It is God’s will’ made Cutter’s instructions seem _too_ final.

 

“I understand, Captain,” Cutter said, nodding and shaking hands with Shuma’ar for the last time. “ _Imsh’Allah_. We’ll remember your sacrifice.”

 

The Coast Guardsman sprinted from the _Hammurabi_ pilothouse down to the weather deck, and rummaged through one of the tugboat’s equipment lockers until he came up with a fire axe. Carrying the large-bladed axe, he leaped from the tug’s bow onto the pitching trash barge. When his feet touched the sheet metal deck plates of the barge, Cutter could feel the entire structure rumbling as Clutch goosed the throttles on the Whale’s main gas turbine engine, warming the plant up for action.

 

Captain Shuma’ar was a silhouette, backlit in the darkening sky by the electric lamps in the pilothouse. He was jamming the throttles as far forward to the stops as he could and steering the tug through the choppy river currents, working the throaty old diesel engines on the tug to their breaking point.

 

Cutter glanced over his shoulder at the river ahead, and lifted open the access hatch to the Whale with his foot, dropping the metal hatch to the deck with a clang. He then raised the fire axe and with two hard chops, severed the mooring lines that held the barge connected to the _Hammurabi_. Within a moment, the current swept the barge south down the river while the _Hammurabi_ turned back to face down the Iraqi patrol gunboat and buy Cutter the time he needed to get all the Joes to safety.

 

Cutter climbed through the access hatch and down a metal ladder to the main deck of the Whale. He jumped into the pilothouse and felt the gentle vibrations of the hovercraft’s gas turbine idling through the helm wheel against his fingertips. “Clutch, are we ready to go?”

 

“All systems ready,” Clutch replied. “We’re on internal power now. The Whale didn’t skip a beat when I disengaged the power service line from the tug’s backup generator.”

 

“Very well,” Cutter replied, nursing the throttles at his helm station. “Shipwreck, stand by on the explosive bolts! Clutch, engage the reduction gears on the propeller fans and open the air cushion vents! We’re outta here!”

 

The slow-moving, floating barge was rocked with the loud popping sounds of the explosive bolts being detonated. The front half of the shell was pushed forward when Cutter goosed the throttles and the Whale slipped out of its enclosure. Cutter steered around the barge halves, as the top-laden steel structures began to sink, having lost their buoyancy and water-tightness.

 

Shipwreck let out a yell of glee, happy to have the wind in his hair at his station next to Cutter in the open-topped pilothouse. “Yahoo! We’re rid of that fucking shit barge! Torpedo’s TDC signal is solid on the GPS navigation display! Let’s go get ‘em!”

 

***

 

1815 hours, local time

 

Deep-Six sat quietly at the bottom of the Tigris River, having laid the SHARC just off an abandoned pleasure boat dock near the hook in the river that rounded Baghdad University. Whistling to himself, he listened carefully through a set of earphones as the passive sonar transducers around the skin of the flying submarine picked up the myriad sounds carrying through the water.

 

In order to save fuel and engine power, the two combination water-jet impellers/ramjet engines fitted to the SHARC hummed at idle speed, which was just enough to keep the internal power systems and life support air recycler operating. The currents at the river bottom gently rocked the SHARC while Deep-Six focused on monitoring his environment.

 

The sound of Cobra Moray hydrofoils running up to speed shook Deep-Six out of his calm reverie. He quickly ran through a series of spoken statements for the benefit of the black boxes that recorded his progress through the mission, in case his SHARC was shot down on the way home.

 

“High-speed screws,” Deep-Six said quietly into his boom mike. “Cobra hydrofoils are in the water. I count four bandits approaching from the northeast.”

 

The deep-sea diver and SHARC pilot moved his hands over the controls so efficiently that he didn’t even need to look at the panels he was touching. He advanced the throttles on his engines and the water jets began to squirt water into the river, propelling the SHARC forward.

 

“Emergency blow, all ballast tanks. Forty-five degrees up bubble. Converting to flight mode to engage the enemy.” Deep-Six angled the nose of the SHARC sharply towards the river’s surface, while the SHARC flight computer came to life, tapping into the sub’s navigation and power systems. The computer, after being warmed up, would automatically control the conversion of the SHARC from its submarine mode to its flying mode.

 

The sound of the ramjet engines grew from a steady hum to a high-pitched whine as the flight computer accelerated the SHARC. Upon reaching the surface of the river, the submarine burst out of the water, and the computer handled closing all of the submarine vents and opening the needed engine vents so that the ramjets could breathe air while the SHARC was airborne. In the blink of an eye, the SHARC rocketed for the sky.

 

***

 

“I heard something that sounded like cavitation,” a Lamprey sonar operator reported to his hydrofoil’s commander. “The sound short started at depth, down by the bottom clutter and then stopped suddenly.”

 

The Lamprey at the hydrofoil’s command station shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. We have to catch up to the naval patrol boat and see what these reports are all about down in Jabbur. If there are Joes around, they may be trying to escape on the river.”

 

A frightened shout came from the bow of the hydrofoil, as the gunner stationed there pointed skyward and yelled, “Watch out! G.I. Joe SHARC is inbound from the air! Air attack!”

 

The Lamprey gunner trained the twin 20mm weapons in his gun tub up at the diving SHARC, just as Deep-Six armed his own guns. Two watertight hatches over the engine nacelles burst open to reveal a total of four small-caliber cannon. The hydrofoil gun crews on all four Morays and Deep-Six opened fire on each other simultaneously. Green tracers peppered the darkening sky as the Joe submariner and the Cobras each sought the first hits of the battle.

 

Deep-Six scored first blood against the hydrofoils, raking two of them right across their bows with his armor-piercing projectiles. The vessels stayed afloat, because the hulls rode above the water when in high-speed mode. However, significant damage was done to their fire control and weapons systems, the result being the main guns of the boats fell silent within moments.

 

As the crews of the damaged hydrofoils spilled out onto their decks armed with light machineguns and assault rifles, Deep-Six banked away from the moving boats, turning to make another run.

 

***

 

“The Whale’s coming ashore!” Torpedo called out to the Joes from a shallow hole he had scraped with his combat knife. The sounds of the hovercraft’s propeller fans was unmistakable as the dark green vessel crashed ashore over the worn down fording site, a muddy natural ramp from the water to the dry land.

 

“Aw, shit!” shouted Tracker. “Someone else heard the Whale too!” Without delay, the SEAL raised his scoped M-4A1 carbine and twisted a suppressor onto the end of the barrel. He fired off a few subsonic rounds at the other half of the Cobra detachment Falcon had waylaid in the warehouse.

 

“Suppressive cover fire!” Torpedo ordered. “Save your ammo and use aimed fire!”

 

Looking over her shoulder, Lady Jaye spotted Falcon, Mutt and Zap running along the tree line at the riverbank. They saw the Whale burst into the clearing from the river and were aiming for it, waving their flashlights at the gunners so they wouldn’t fire on them by accident. “Torpedo! Falcon’s guys are here! We can extract any time!”

 

Agent Guilford was crouched behind a tree and positioned next to Rock & Roll’s field-expedient machine gun nest when the Cobras began to fire back. Bullets from their AK-74 rifles stitched around their area, hitting as close as the tree she was behind. Rock & Roll reached around the agent’s torso and hauled her down to the ground before rattling away with his light machine gun.

 

“Sergeant McConnell, you could have just said to watch out,” Guilford said, panting. “Please don’t scare me like that!”

 

Rock & Roll replied with a smile, in between bursts of fire. “I stole a page from our first sergeant’s book, Jennifer. I preferred to be a ‘man of action’.”

 

“I think you just wanted to cop a feel, trooper,” Guilford replied, firing her AK-74 in the same direction as Rock & Roll’s RPK-74. “I kind of liked it, you sneak...”

 

Wet-Suit and Wet-Down were covering one flank of the semi-circular perimeter and spotted a scout team the Cobras had sent around. Grinning evilly, the two combat divers lobbed grenades at the approaching scouts and in the ensuing confusion, cut them down with bursts of fully automatic fire from their MP-5K sub-machineguns before un-slinging their M-4A1 carbines and helping engage the main body of enemy troops in a cross fire.

 

Big Ben charged out from behind a small cluster of trees and right into the line of fire of the Cobras. He sprayed the area with his light machine gun as he ran, yelling a throaty battle cry. Although the fire was wild, Big Ben actually hit a few of the charging Cobras and scared them into keeping their distance. His sprint finally ended at Tracker’s roughly scratched hole, and the SAS trooper fell to his belly next to the SEAL.

 

“Jeezus, Big Ben,” Tracker said. “What the hell was that about? You could have been hit!”

 

“I needed to reposition, mate,” the SAS man replied. “This pig is no good pointed away from the bad guys, eh?”

 

***

 

Cutter ducked behind the armor plating that protected the front of the open pilothouse as he vented some thrust air and brought the Whale to a halt. As the hovercraft kicked up a cloud of dust from the braking maneuver, the Whale’s skipper began to shout orders to the other Joes in the crew.

 

“Leatherneck and Mirage, cover the ground team with your gun tubs!” Cutter shouted over the hull of the Whale to the Marines that were manning its defensive weapons. He then grabbed a sound-powered telephone and shouted down to the weapons control station situated in front of the engine spaces. “Topside, get forward and drop the boarding ramp! Rampart, stand ready on the M-256 smoke ejectors! Gung-Ho, keep the missile racks and main guns ready for action!

 

The Joes below decks scrambled to obey Cutter’s instructions. Topside grabbed an MP-5K SMG and pulled on the release handle that opened the nose section of the Whale and lowered its large boarding ramp. “Come on, Joes!” the sailor yelled while firing off short bursts of 9mm at the Cobras. “The bus is waiting!”

 

Falcon, Mutt and Zap reached the Whale’s ramp first, adding sporadic bursts of fire to Topside’s shots. They only had to cover the others for a few moments, until Torpedo waved a fist into the air and signaled for everyone to fall back to the Whale.

 

“They’re coming aboard!” Topside reported from the bow ramp. “Rampart, lay the smoke screen now!”

 

Rampart, from the belly of the Whale, activated the M-256 smoke grenade launchers. The M-256 system was the same system fitted to M-60A3 Patton III tanks and fired off a spread of twelve smoke grenades, enough to lay a screen of obscuration around a tank or the Whale. As the billowing clouds of smoke burst from the grenades, the screen covered the Joes as they abandoned their positions and clattered up the bow ramp.

 

“What’s the head count?” Cutter yelled down from the pilothouse as Topside shut the bow ramp and helped the tired troops and SEALS into seats and checked them over for injuries.

 

Topside picked up the sound-powered phone at the weapons station and reported back, “I have eleven, including Torpedo’s fire team. All present and accounted for!”

 

“Very well,” Cutter said, hanging up the intercom phone and returning his attention to the controls of the Whale. He throttled up the main engine and spun the hovercraft around on its air cushion, quickly floating the vehicle down the riverbank and back onto the Tigris.

 

***

 

Deep-Six banked around for his second pass on the Cobra hydrofoils, wagging his wings to avoid the defensive barrage of steel that the deck gunners were throwing up. He calmly dove for the deck and sighted in on the rear ends of the Cobra boats.

 

Pulling a trigger on his flight control stick, the diver released the two Mark 46 homing torpedoes that the SHARC carried in a launch bay under its belly. The weapons fell from the SHARC and splashed into the river.

 

“Skipper!” yelled a Lamprey sonar operator. “High speed screws! Two fish in the water on bearings one-eight-zero and one-eight-two! The warheads are actively pinging and have acquired our boats!”

 

The Lamprey in charge of the hydrofoil grabbed his radio handset and tried to warn the other three Morays of the danger. “This is Moray Four! Commence evasive pattern! Two fish inbound from rear aspect! Launch countermeasures!”

 

Deep-Six opened fire on the hydrofoils again while small objects were ejected from compressed-air racks on each of the Morays. Each small object was a bubbler, much like the five-inch caliber devices carried on attack submarines. The diver smiled to himself with the knowledge that the countermeasures couldn’t fool his Mark 46 torpedoes. As he banked away from his second pass, acrid black smoke spewed from the engine plant of a Moray, and it settled into the water as the engines sputtered and died.

 

“This is Moray Three!” the skipper of the stricken hydrofoil radioed. “That Joe bastard knocked out our propulsion plant and high-volume bilge pumps! We’ve lost all forward speed and are taking on water! We can’t continue pursuit!”

 

Morays Two and Four had begun to weave back and forth to confuse the gyros in Deep-Six’s Mark 46 fish. But the torpedoes accelerated to their maximum speed of fifty knots before the slower hydrofoils could make a difference. The fish detonated against the large fins of the hydrofoils, blasting their means of riding over the water out from under them. Both hydrofoils heeled over onto their sides and exploded as their hulls plowed into the water’s surface at full speed.

 

“Damn that SHARC!” the skipper of Moray One cursed. “Knock that bastard out of the sky!” Despite his defensive guns being out of action, the well-trained Lampreys on his crew had jury-rigged a firing panel onto one of the missile launchers. With a blast of flame and smoke, a surface-to-air weapon leapt from the launcher box and streaked into the air after Deep-Six’s SHARC.

 

“Uh oh,” Deep-Six mumbled as the warble from his radar warning receiver rang in his ears. He leaned back in his seat and spotted the tail fire from the Moray’s weapon heading his way. Working his rudders and stick, the SHARC pilot got his craft turned around speedily and dove for the missile, firing with all of his guns. His rounds ended up raking the hydrofoil from stem to stern, killing most of the sailors on deck and splitting the boat in half when one of the missile launch boxes blew sky high.

 

Unfortunately, Deep-Six wasn’t able to knock out the SAM. It detonated just off his right wing, shattering the starboard ramjet engine to pieces and damaging the flight controls on that side. Deep-Six’s emergency training took over automatically. He aimed the SHARC towards where he knew the Whale would be escaping and then set about trimming the wings level and firing off the Halon 1331 fire suppression system in the wrecked engine.

 

“Cutter, this is Deep-Six, can you read me?” Deep-Six’s sleepy voice crackled over Shipwreck’s communications board as if he was just having another day at the office. “The Morays are out of action, but they got me. I can’t engage the patrol boat. I’m going to try for a water landing ahead of you. Do you guys mind coming by to give me a ride home?”

 

Shipwreck answered the deep-sea diver automatically. “Deep-Six, this is Shipwreck. Put her down anywhere you can. We’ve just turned onto the southerly leg of the river and are going to make a speed run out of the city’s defensive ring. We’ll spot you overhead and come get you.”

 

***

 

Captain Shuma’ar turned all of his running lights on, as the now-lightened _Hammurabi_ was able to make maximum speed. He aimed for the Iraqi patrol boat, pulling a lever on his control panel.

 

When the control was activated, false wooden panels between the pilothouse and weather deck fell away to reveal a pair of forward-fixed 20mm General Electric GECAL-20 guns that had been hidden in the tugboat. They were surplus cannon from Vietnam-era F-4 Phantom gun pods that the CIA had seen fit to install in the _Hammurabi_ for just the occasion Shuma’ar was involved in.

 

On board the large Iraqi patrol craft, Lampreys and Iraqi sailors scrambled to arm the deck gun and smaller weapons mounted on the gunboat’s bow. The patrol craft _INS Baghdad_ was an old leaky tub that was converted from an interned Kuwaiti trawler as a stopgap when the US sank most of the navy in 1991. Her one hundred twenty-two millimeter main deck gun was an unshielded relic salvaged from a retired ex-Russian artillery piece. The gun crewmen that manned the ‘Alfa’ battery thus fought in the open and were potentially vulnerable to fire from the tug’s 20mm guns. But the crew thought they had the advantage against an unarmed civilian trash hauler.

 

“The bow battery is manned and ready, Captain. And we’ve identified the tug as a trash hauler, the _MV Hammurabi_. Her registry is legitimate, but she is supposed to be pushing a barge to Umm Qasr and not flitting around our waters,” reported the Lamprey officer of the deck to his commander on the bridge of the gunboat. He scanned the deck of the patrol boat once more to make sure the deck division crew was ready for action. “We’re prepared to stop and secure the tugboat.”

 

“Very well,” the Iraqi captain answered, studying the dark holes below the tug’s pilothouse and looking the old wooden vessel over in general. “Sound General Quarters and have the deck and engineering divisions dog all watertight compartment hatches. Chief of the boat, challenge the _MV Hammurabi_ and order her to heave to and prepare to be boarded.”

 

Another Lamprey, ranked as a senior non-commissioned officer, stepped up to the bridge’s communications panel and engaged the patrol craft’s loudspeaker system. He spoke in short Arabic phrases. “Attention, _Motor Vessel Hammurabi_. This is the naval patrol vessel _INS Baghdad_. Heave to and prepare to be boarded for security check! You are in a restricted zone!”

 

“Restricted zone, my ass,” Captain Shuma’ar mumbled, grabbing a small thumb plunger that was attached to his control panel with a wire. He jammed his thumb down on the trigger, and his 20mm guns fired, the hot rounds buzzing towards the _INS Baghdad_ like angry hornets.

 

The gun chief for the _INS Baghdad_ ’s 122mm sat on a stack of wooden ammo crates on the deck, casually watching his crew ready the piece to fire, when the buzz of the electric cannon and the orange bursts of muzzle flash assaulted his senses. In the space of a breath, he felt disbelief that a rickety old wooden tub on the Tigris could be armed.

 

“Take cover! Incoming fire!” the gun chief yelled, dropping to a crouch behind the ammo crates. “Return fire! Hit that floating trash heap in the superstructure!”

 

Although the _Hammurabi_ was able to score about fifty hits with the first burst of 20mm, few men on the gun crew were affected. Most of the bullets peppered the steel-armored superstructure between the main deck and the bridge. With a blast of fire and smoke, the 122mm launched a projectile at the tugboat. The over-powered shot careened over the _Hammurabi_ entirely and splashed into the river with a large column of water rising above it.

 

“What the fuck are your men doing down there?” the Iraqi Captain fumed at the Lamprey OOD. “I didn’t give an order to fire! I wanted the crew to take into custody for questioning!”

 

“My men are doing what they were trained to do,” the Lamprey shouted back. “They don’t stand around and get fired on just so you can board that piece of shit! The ground forces have alerted us to the presence of American commandoes and a Joe hovercraft! We have to stop them from escaping!”

 

The Iraqi officer slammed his fist on the arm of his captain’s chair and whirled to face the Lamprey. “You will obey my commands without question and have the fucking gunners cease fire! I run this boat and you Cobras are supposed to follow my orders!”

 

The Lamprey glanced around the bridge. All of the men present on the bridge watch were fellow Lampreys or Eels that were loyal to Cobra. The OOD drew a pistol silently from underneath his uniform and shot the Captain in the back of the head. “You’re being retired on active duty, Captain shit-for-brains.” The captain’s body slumped down into the raised chair and the officer of the deck hauled the corpse to one of the bridge wings and tossed it out onto the weather deck. “Holy shit, shipmates! That tugboat’s contraband guns killed the Captain! Order the gunners to fire at will!”

 

Shuma’ar triggered another burst of 20mm at the _INS Baghdad_ as he watched the deck crew scurrying to reload the main gun. For the second time, his barrage mostly hit the superstructure armor, but it also cut down a number of deck hands, which slowed the gunners’ progress.

 

The gun chief hauled the bloody mess of one of his deck gunners off the weapon assembly so that the crew could reposition it to fire. Other men bloodied by the 20mm raking were lying on the deck like floppy toys strewn about in a child’s playroom. “Get the sawbones up here and clear these shipmates from my gunnery space! Gun crew, FIRE!”

 

The _INS Baghdad_ rattled and shook as another 122mm round arced towards the _MV Hammurabi_. This time, the shot was better. It fell nearly vertically into the forward deck of the _Hammurabi_ , shredding the wooden planks into splinters and exploding in the forward bilges. The bilge bay explosion cracked the lower hull of the tug by the keel and caused water to trickle into the spaces below the waterline.

 

Shuma’ar felt the whole tug shake when the 122mm round scored its hit. He knew there were no longer any options to flee. The river captain steered his boat right for the patrol craft, which had begun to turn to avoid some shoreline obstructions. He could see the gun crew moving to turn the 122mm into a good firing angle and reload it. The determined fighter held down the trigger button and expended every round of 20mm his GECAL units had.

 

The former OOD crouched behind the bridge’s armor plating when the 20mm rounds peppered the starboard side of the _INS Baghdad_. He looked to that side and saw that thick black smoke had begun pouring out of the hole in the tug’s bow and the main smokestack. What was worse, the captain of the tug was keeping the old craft on a collision course. He hoped his gunners could deliver the fatal blow in time.

 

The patrol boat’s gun chief reached for any fitting on the deck gun that he could grab onto and heaved with all the strength he could muster. His surviving deck hands were doing the same. The crew could smell the acrid stench of smoke and burning wood planks, poorly-refined diesel fuel, and old paint as it cooked off the tug from spreading fires in the bilges. The tug was going to hit the INS Baghdad before they could get the obstinate gun into firing position. Many of the young faces of the sailors were transfixed into looks of horror at the bodies of their shipmates around them and the thought of how they would end up when the _MV Hammurabi_ rammed the _INS Baghdad_. They didn’t have to speculate very long.

 

The _Hammurabi_ smashed into the patrol craft amidships, the tough steel skeletons of both vessels rending each other and ripping the hulls wide open. Before the _INS Baghdad’s_ engineering crew could even try to control the damage, the fire on the tug had spread to the diesel engines and fuel bunker. The resulting blast made all hope of abandoning either vessel impossible.

 

Intertwined together in what could qualify as a dance of death on the river, the two burning vessels and their dying crews slipped below the water, leaving a burning oil slick and some debris behind. Then the river fell quiet, the water lapping peacefully as it had for eons.

 

***

 

The Whale’s gas turbine sounded like a softly whooshing jet engine, rather than the all-too-familiar growling noises of the previous propulsion system. Thus, when it drove the main propellers and the air cushion fans, it was nearly silent with the exception of the normal noises of the hull pushing aside the river water. Because of the more stealthy mode of travel the Whale was able to avoid being detected by Cobra coastal security posts.

 

Deep-Six fought the controls of the SHARC, as the single remaining engine strained to keep the wobbly fighter/submarine in the air. Trailing a thick plume of smoke from fuel and lubricants cooking off against the damaged jet pod, the craft slipped lower and lower over the river.

 

The naval deep-sea diver had to yank back on his control yoke to pitch his nose up, dodging a dark shape on the water’s surface. When Deep-Six took a backwards glance, he could see the familiar outline of the blacked-out Whale silhouetted against the waning light of the setting sun.

 

“SHARC to Whale, how do you copy?” Deep-Six called on the radio, never losing the level of cool in his voice from many years in the ‘silent service’.

 

“We see you,” Cutter replied. “You’re pouring out a lot of smoke from the right engine and I’m a damned mermaid if you’re going to keep that thing airborne with one rudder and your entire right wing’s control surfaces shredded.”

 

“Good news, Cutter,” Deep-Six responded. “You’re no mermaid. And they wouldn’t want one as ugly as you anyway. My controls are sluggish and I’m going to try for a belly landing on the river. Watch out for a single starburst flare. Deep-Six out.”

 

“Roger that; Cutter out,” Cutter replied. He goosed the throttles on the Whale to increase speed in order to be on station right when Deep-Six needed his buddies.

 

The SHARC pilot hung tightly onto the control stick of his craft as a grinding sound came from his left (and only functioning) engine. Alarm sounds erupted from his control panel, followed by green status lights turning a flashing red. A tinny female voice came from his control panel as well, warning Deep-Six of the impending crash. “Low Altitude... Low Altitude... Convert to submersible... Low Altitude...”

 

“I hear you already,” Deep-Six mumbled, punching the speaker built into the control panel, which shattered with a shower of sparks. “Keep quiet, you damn flight computer!”

 

“Fifty feet to surface,” stated the flight computer in a now-crackly voice. “Forty feet to surface... Thirty feet to surface... Twenty feet to surface...”

 

Deep-Six watched his gauges as the last electrical power he had burned out and his left engine went dead. The stick became “dead” as well, which meant no amount of muscle power the diver could muster would make the cyclic move. There wasn’t even enough power to fire off the automatic ejector system. “Guess I’ve just become a passenger,” Chief Petty Officer Willoughby grunted, drawing his cal-.45 sidearm and pulling a set of goggles over his wetsuit for when the SHARC finally hit the water.

 

With a loud splash and cascades of water covering all sides of the large Plexiglas cockpit, the submersible finally bellied up to the river. Because there had been no power to convert the craft to submarine mode, it began to fill with water through the engines and now-unusable vital systems.

 

Deep-Six didn’t waste any time. He grabbed onto a small pouch that was velcroed to his pilot’s seat and fired once with his pistol. The large forty-five caliber round smashed the Plexiglas and shattered it into a million small shards and pieces. The diver crawled out of the cockpit and then onto the broad back of the SHARC while it bubbled and smoked, as water slowly pushed trapped air out of every nook and cranny of the craft. From the pouch, Deep-Six pulled a signaling pistol with a starburst flare, and a small roll of plastic and rubber with a tiny carbon dioxide canister.

 

A quick twist on the plastic device activated the CO2 canister and inflated an emergency flotation device that Deep-Six could wrap around his neck and secure to his wetsuit. He fired the signaling pistol and watched the starburst explode a thousand feet above his head. Then, the downed pilot sat down on top of his stricken submersible to await rescue, his trusty automatic pistol in hand.

 

Within a few minutes of getting out of the SHARC, Deep-Six had decided to conserve his energy and try to catch a few winks of light sleep. He was awakened from his snoozing when the Whale gently bumped against the SHARC hull, and the mechanical groan of the bow ramp coming down filled his ears. Wet-Suit and Tracker walked out onto the ramp with tethers on their waists, reaching for Deep-Six.

 

“Come on, Chief, no sleeping on the job,” Tracker joked, grabbing onto one of Deep-Six’s arms and guiding him over to the ramp. Wet-Suit got the other side of Deep-Six and between them, the SEALS got their fellow sailor aboard. Once the men had gotten into the main compartment, Torpedo stepped onto the ramp and unslung a canvas G.I. satchel from his shoulder. He yanked on a protruding cord and then tossed it into the flooding cockpit of the SHARC. As soon as Torpedo gave a thumbs-up to the pilothouse, Cutter gunned the main engine and the Whale accelerated away.

 

When Torpedo’s satchel charge fuse ran out, the cockpit of the SHARC was just about covered by the river surface. With a spectacular blast that formed a tall column of water, the sinking SHARC was permanently scuttled so that Cobra couldn’t salvage it for its technology or onboard systems.

 

***

 

Hafr-al-Batin Air Base

24 July, 2002

2300 hours, local time

 

“Better get your last looks around the base right quick, El-Tee,” Lift-Ticket joked to Crypto while they packed some equipment into an M-1101 High-Mobility Trailer which had been palletized for the recon mission to Camp Al-Shu’a. “You’ll be over the DZ by oh-two-hundred so long as Ace and Slipstream get back with the MC-141B from Bahrain.”

 

“You mustn’t think I’m coming back, Lift-Ticket,” Crypto said, not amused by the joke. “I’ll bet you a hundred pushups that I’m back on this tarmac, right on schedule.”

 

“I didn’t imply that at all, sir,” Lift-Ticket replied, choking back an apology. “But the wager is fair enough.”

 

A voice coming over the hangar loudspeakers caught the Joes’ attention. “This is the Operations Shack. Clear Parking Area Juliet for MC-141B arrival. Clear Parking Area Juliet, MC-141B is arriving.”

 

“Well, Ace is on time, Lift-Ticket,” Crypto said, nodding to the transport helicopter pilot. “I’ll be seeing you to collect those pushups.”

 

Elsewhere on the sprawling air base, Ace and Slipstream maneuvered the Joe Team’s newly-assigned MC-141B Star Lifter, which was an Air Force transport modified for special operations airdrop missions. The pilots had just come back from a routine “hack” mission to Manama, Bahrain. Their job was to collect a number of new personnel being assigned to the Joes, as well as to satisfy a check ride requirement of the Air Force. Experienced C-141 pilots had ridden with Ace and Slipstream to qualify them behind the stick of their “one-forty-one”.

 

With a blast of hot air, the MC-141B rolled into Parking Area Juliet, right in front of the Joes’ hangars and advanced tactical fighters. The steady whine of the transport’s engines slowly faded and the left front doorway opened to allow a number of green shirts and provisional Joes to deplane.

 

As the passengers disembarked, the rear clamshell doors opened and the MC-141B’s loading ramp dropped to the tarmac. Crypto and Lift-Ticket hopped into a heavy-duty tow tractor and the helicopter pilot drove out to the plane, towing the first of four loading pallets. The loading pallets contained equipment and vehicles assigned to Crypto’s mission.

 

Lift-Ticket had to stop the tow tractor to let a number of passengers from the plane to pass by. Crypto had unintentionally taken an extra long look at one of the females of the group, a strikingly beautiful and mature Major. Even though she was loaded down with a briefcase and an Army duffel bag, she was able to carry her five-foot-six frame upright. The officer’s short-cropped black hair neatly framed her face, which was round and showed a hint of an olive skin tone.

 

The Major noticed Crypto staring and turned in his direction, clearing her throat loudly. “If you’re going to watch me for this long a time, it is customary to salute, Captain.”

 

Crypto jumped off the tractor and covered the three steps to where the Major stood. Coming to attention, he snapped a salute quickly and replied. “Begging your pardon, ma’am. I’m a Navy Lieutenant, not a Captain. I’m thinking about my mission and meant nothing by it.”

 

Lift-Ticket made a point to avert his eyes so that the Major wouldn’t see a reason to pay him undue attention. The Major got right into Crypto’s face and looked his BDU’s over, even though the battle dress lacked any identifying marks at all other than Crypto’s rank. “Mission, huh? Well, then, chances are I’ll be working with you from the base, because I’m your outfit’s new Intel and Civil Affairs liaison.” The Major extended a hand in greeting. “I’m Major Sara Levinson, but you can call me by my code name, Swansong.”

 

“Lieutenant Hoppe, code name Crypto.” Crypto looked into Swansong’s hazel eyes and they burned with intensity. She was also studying the younger officer and he thought that she’d be able to read him like an open book. He took her hand and gently shook it, despite the fact Swansong’s grip was like steel.

 

“You’ll probably be taking over my J-2 shop then, since I’m General Tomahawk’s current staff Intel officer. It’s a pleasure to have you with us, Swansong,” Crypto said. “By your leave, ma’am, we need to load up and bug out. My team’s op has a scheduled wheels-up at 0030 hours.” Crypto’s eyes darkened with a slight hint of sadness as if he felt Swansong was being shipped in to replace him.

 

Swansong laid a hand on Crypto’s shoulder, and her touch was warm and comforting. “Your job will still be here when you RTB from your task, Lieutenant. You just have some good luck and come back.” The officers traded salutes and Lift-Ticket revved the engine of the tractor once more. Silhouettes of other Joes from Crypto’s mission team were moving towards the MC-141B under the bright lights of the tarmac parking area.

 

“The crowd’s clear, Crypto,” the helicopter pilot said in his Southern drawl. “Ya’ll better hop back in so we can get this show on the road!”


	18. Super Gun II

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Fifteen

Super Gun Part II

 

***

 

Hanging from the risers

Fighting in the grass

Every time we jump out

We always break our ass!

 

Hey there! Hi there! Ho there!

Who in the Hell are we?

Blim, Blam, God Damn!

We’re Airborne Infantry!

 

(Excerpt from WWII paratrooper running cadence)

 

***

 

Somewhere over central Iraq

25 July, 2002

0130 hours, local time

 

It was a moonless night over Iraq. Thick, low-hanging clouds blackened the landscape around Camp Al-Shu’a as the garrison’s powerful spotlights lit up the night sky. However, the air at fifteen thousand feet AGL was clear and stars twinkled far above.

 

Well over the air defense guns and surface-to-air missile emplacements of the Cobra 15th Regiment, the Joes’ MC-141B Star Lifter cruised high in the sky, virtually invisible to enemy ground sensors thanks to a special fit of jamming equipment.

 

In the bowels of the transport aircraft, twelve Joes were performing final checks on their parachutes and combat equipment. Sitting in troop seats made of woven cargo netting, some gobbled on sandwiches and chugged at cups of hot coffee while others just worked the latches and buckles on their pouches and belts.

 

A section of green shirts assigned to the plane as loadmasters had set about checking over the cargo chutes connected to four loading pallets towards the rear ramp of the plane. Tugging on every strap, and checking every attachment point, turnbuckle and piece of shoring twice, the green shirts worked like busy bees to make sure the team’s two AWE Strikers, single M-1114 Armored Hummer and M-1101 High Mobility Trailer were ready to drop. They also made sure the racks of jerry cans containing fuel and water, and the mounted weapons and containerized ammunition on the vehicles was completely secured. When the team of loadmasters was satisfied that everything was in the right places for the vehicles, they reported in to the cockpit that all was ready.

 

***

 

“Okay, Slipstream,” Ace said, hanging up the intercom that connected the cockpit to the cargo spaces. “The cargo bay is a go, and General Tomahawk has given his final approval. Set new course of three-one-zero and reduce cruising altitude to five thousand feet. Dial in the final altitude of one thousand feet AGL and start the drop clock at the next course waypoint.”

 

“You got it, Ace,” Slipstream replied from the co-pilot’s chair, adjusting a number of dials and punching in some commands on the Star Lifter’s auto pilot computer, to set the new course and altitude. While Ace held onto the aircraft’s control yoke, Slipstream typed in a series of codes and coordinates into the automatic navigation computer, pre-programming the parameters of the airdrop mission profile into one of the SPECOPS Star Lifter’s five electronic “brains”.

 

The large aerial transport’s auto pilot indicated a slow left bank onto the new heading, and Ace and Slipstream lightly rested their hands on the control yokes while the plane eased into the turn, just in case “Otto” went wrong or malfunctioned. As soon as the wings were leveled again, the MC-141B’s nose dipped slightly into a smooth descent as the auto pilot adjusted to the new flight profile. The whine of the four large turbofan engines also abated as the flight computer throttled back to reduce airspeed and improve fuel economy for the change in altitude.

 

“I wonder if our buddies are still out there with us,” Slipstream wondered out loud as he reached to grip onto his control yoke and Ace shifted in his seat. “I have the stick, Ace. You can get up and take that constitutional now.”

 

Ace stretched and yawned. The rapid turnaround of the MC-141B at Hafr-al-Batin didn’t leave much time for rest or a meal. No relief crew had come out of the Joes’ hangar either, so Ace and Slipstream had been stuck with the late night sortie into Iraq after a full day of shuttling replacement personnel and supplies between Dhahran and Hafr-al-Batin Air Base. Raising the right armrest of his seat, the pilot climbed out to use the head.

 

Before leaving, he passed a pair of night vision goggles to Slipstream. “The Raptors were coated in black RAM paint like the X-19 before being given this escort mission. It’ll be tough, but you might be able to spot them with the NVG’s.”

 

Slipstream lowered the NVG’s over his eyes and glanced out the left windows of the cockpit. It took a moment of searching until he spotted two sets of formation light strips glowing in the infrared spectrum. Once his eyes adjusted, the smooth shapes of the pair of F/A-22A Raptors materialized in the night sky. “Yep, there go those Raptors,” Slipstream thought as he returned to keeping the Star Lifter in trim. “Good old Maverick and Ghost Rider are staying in formation right with us.”

 

***

 

Meanwhile, in the rear cabin, Walkabout and Crypto were going over a map of the drop zone and discussing the planned route of march to Camp Al-Shu’a. The veteran Australian SAS non-com was trying to keep a light atmosphere while he discussed that phase of the mission.

 

“... Look at it this way, Leftenant, I’m sure the scorpions and desert animals taste real good when we use the hot engine block of our Hummer to cook ‘em!” Walkabout feigned a gourmet’s flourish while he downed an invisible creature. “And when we’re that deep in the sand, there’ll be no worries about this squad finding a pub and getting buried under a pile of spinnakers and going three sheets ta the wind!”

 

Crypto laughed while tracing out the course with his own finger. “Is that all you SAS blokes think about? Showing off and drinking the worst fire-water in the world?”

 

Walkabout laughed a hearty belly laugh that drew glances from the other squad members. “Aye, mate. If you ain’t drinking the worst piss juice, making bush tucker out of whatever shit you can find, and kicking Cobra arse, then you ain’t living it up in my book!”

 

“You’re one tough sonofabitch, Walkabout,” Crypto said with a smile. “Thank God you’re on our side, eh?”

 

“Aye, mate,” Walkabout said, picking his teeth with the blade of his combat knife. “You’re too right, Leftenant.”

 

Crypto folded up his copy of the tactical map and clapped Walkabout on the shoulder. “You just keep that attitude going for the both of us, will ya?” With a nod and smile from the well-built Aussie, the naval officer hoisted himself and his jump rig onto his feet.

 

Crypto had to hunch over as he shouldered the combined weight of his personal equipment, weapons, and the T-10M main and reserve parachutes. He crossed the length of the passenger area, looking into the eyes of each Joe sitting along the row, trying to gauge the jitters, or the fears, or the thoughts of each one as the mission grew closer. Reaching the end of the row closest to the jump door, he sat in his assigned place at the head of the “chalk”, next to Scarlett. Exhaling loudly, he lowered himself into the troop seat with a grunt.

 

Scarlett was thumbing through a tattered catalog from Frederick’s of Hollywood, gazing at the many plates of models wearing all manner of sexy lingerie and accessories. She noticed a neutral look on Crypto’s face, and without putting the catalog down, she asked, “Penny for your thoughts, El-Tee?”

 

“I’ve heard rumors of that catalog circulating around the women’s barracks,” Crypto replied, taking a peek at the cover. “For a six-month old publication, you don’t know how many Joes want to infiltrate your sector to steal a glimpse at that thing.”

 

Scarlett looked up at the lieutenant, her lips breaking into a smile. “I’ll never tell how we keep it from falling into enemy hands, El-Tee. If the men ever found it, we’d either never recover it or it would come back too sticky to read. The girls just pass it around to admire the skinny chicks and dream about wearing some of this stuff for our guys when this conflict is all over.”

 

“Perchance to dream, Sergeant,” Crypto said nonchalantly before catching a questioning look. “No offense intended, Scarlett. I’m sure Duke would surely appreciate you showing off your assets in one of those getups... I’m just not that optimistic that this conflict will end happily for some of us.”

 

“Well, Mister ‘glass is half empty’, you know there’s a teammate of ours holding her torch high for you,” Scarlett said with a wink, reminding Crypto of his whirlwind relationship that had developed on a mission to Germany. “Don’t you dare disappoint her, or else the entire female Joe contingent will invade Baghdad to hunt you down!”

 

Crypto became lost in his own thoughts while he un-wrapped the second half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He had squirreled the morsel away when a loadmaster passed around an in-flight snack and large Thermoses of coffee to keep the team alert.

 

Scarlett finished scanning the lingerie catalog and slipped it into an inter-office envelope with Lady Jaye’s barracks room number written on the outside, which she passed to a loadmaster for when the plane got back to base. She turned her deep, thoughtful eyes towards Crypto and studied him intensely. “How are you doing, El-Tee?” she asked. “I noticed you were taking the time to check everyone on the team out. How are you holding up? You really still feel okay with this mission?”

 

“I’m alright, I guess,” Crypto replied, polishing off his sandwich and washing out his mouth with a sip of bottled water. He produced his battered dog tag from a pocket and gently rubbed it between his fingers, as if it were a lucky charm. “Ask me again when the bullets have stopped flying and we’re back on base.”

 

***

 

Somewhere over Iraq

0150 hours, local time

 

Slipstream took a number of quick glances across his controls and gauges, paging through the data on his main multi-functional display, or MFD, which displayed the aircraft’s position, navigation, systems status, and a host of other bits of information for the flight crew. He cross-checked the GPS position and flight vector against his mission checklist, and then nodded to Ace, who flipped on a cabin lighting switch and buzzed the loadmasters in the back of the Star Lifter to answer the intercom.

 

“This is it,” Slipstream reported back to the chief loadmaster as the visual cues on the cockpit navigation panel indicated the range to the DZ. “This is your five minute warning. Five minutes to drop zone.”

 

The chief loadmaster hung up the intercom and the cabin lights dimmed to a red glow. “Red light, Joes!” the sergeant shouted. “Five mikes to DZ! Jumpers, stand up to the static line!”

 

“On your feet, Joes!” Crypto yelled from the front of the chalk, over the ambient noises in the cargo bay. “Let’s go earn our combat pay!” Scarlett flashed the officer a smile and thumbs-up of encouragement before hoisting herself onto her feet with a groan.

 

The dozen Joes lined up facing the paratroop exit door, each one holding the drogue line for their parachute in their right hands. Everyone on the team was loaded down with at least a hundred pounds of gear – weapons, ammo, spare desert camouflage utilities, water canteens and the like. They each had to shoulder that burden on top of the main and reserve parachute rigs that would keep the jumpers from getting smeared on the desert floor.

 

The chief loadmaster pointed to the wall of the transport and moved his other hand towards it. “Hook up!” In unison, the Joes snapped the heavy duty spring clips on the ends of their drogue lines onto the static line, a thin metal cable that ran to the plane’s exit door. The drone of the jets softened as the pilots slowed the Star Lifter to a safe speed for the deplaning.

 

Reaching for a large lever, the chief loadmaster unlocked the paratroop exit door and the door’s seals broke with a loud hiss. Hydraulic rods and a mechanical power assist helped lift the door out of the way and a blast of outside air rushed into the cabin as it depressurized. Jerking on his safety tether and making sure his emergency parachute was clipped to the static line, the loadmaster leaned out into the slipstream and visually checked their altitude as best as he could. He also glanced back towards the wings and the skin of the Star Lifter to make sure there were no hazardous obstructions that the jumpers could hang up on. Meanwhile, the assistant loadmasters in the tail section opened the clamshell doors and ramp, readying the vehicle pallets for dropping.

 

Returning to one side of the exit door, the loadmaster shouted again. “Shuffle forward, jumpers! Final rig check! Go or no go to jump! Jump chalk, sound off by the numbers!”

 

Walkabout stood at the rear of the line, and shouted forward after his rig was checked over. “Twelve okay, mate!”

 

“Eleven’s tactical!” Grunt yelled, fixing his face in a deadly serious look.

 

“Ten’s a go, dude!” Footloose shouted, making a surfer’s “ok” hand sign.

 

“Nine okay!” Sergeant Sure-shot called with a thumbs-up.

 

“Eight is copasetic!” Hit & Run yelled as he checked his assault rifle, strapped to his leg.

 

“Seven okay!” Repeater shouted, cinching the straps on his M-249 SAW tightly around him.

 

“Six is okay!” Waveform yelled, making a quick sign of the cross on his chest.

 

“Five okay!” Chuckles said tersely.

 

“Four okay!” Sneak-Peek yelled with gusto. “Airborne Rangers lead the way!”

 

“Three okay!” Sergeant Hacker shouted.

 

“Two okay!” Scarlett called, chucking Crypto on the shoulder after she gave his rigging straps one last tug.

 

After Crypto focused on each Joe’s voice calling out their chalk position number, he felt his own gear and pouches, gulped back some final hesitation, and shouted, “One’s okay! Chalk ready to jump! YO, JOE!” Everyone in the line heard Crypto’s call and shouted “YO, JOE!” in reply.

 

The chief loadmaster turned on the aircraft intercom and reported to the cockpit, shouting “All jumpers are go!” over the noise of rushing air. He nodded as Slipstream gave a reply, and then hung up. Raising two fingers so that the group could see, he yelled down the line, “Two minutes to DZ!”

 

A small red bulb next to the door began to blink for fifteen seconds, indicating the flight crew was holding the MC-141B at the designated altitude and the jump point was fast approaching. The chief loadmaster waved the Joes forward and yelled to Crypto, “Stand in the door, jumper!”

 

Crypto grabbed onto the “chicken handle”, a handhold built into the airframe, and shuffled forward. The blast of outside air hit him hard, almost physically pushing him back. Scarlett reached up to give the Lieutenant a gentle shove forward and some of the other Joes were snickering behind them. All of the Joes reached for sets of dust goggles wrapped tightly around their Kevlar “Fritz” helmets and lowered them over their faces. All the jumpers looked at the red bulb on the light panel by the door, steeling themselves for when the bulb changed to green.

 

The chief loadmaster leaned past Crypto to look out the door one last time and did a visual safety check around the path the jumpers would take. Satisfied everything was good to go, the sergeant stepped back and cinched his safety tether tight. He then grabbed Crypto’s shoulder and turned him to face the rushing air outside while giving his chute rigging one final tug. The other Joes shuffled up to the door so that there was a minimum number of seconds between each jumper leaving the plane.

 

Crypto grabbed the door edges and let go of the “chicken handle”, lining the chunky heels of his combat boots up with the very edge of the threshold and rocking on the balls of his feet. The loadmaster’s hand was still on his shoulder, ready to give the final push out of the plane. The red light flashed for fifteen seconds and then the bulb switched to green.

 

In the space of a heartbeat, Crypto felt the chief loadmaster give him a gentle push forward, and he stepped out into space. When the fast-moving slipstream outside the MC-141B caught his body, Crypto yelled out “YO JOE!” but the sounds were drowned out by the whine of the Star Lifter’s turbofan engines.

 

At first, it felt like bungee jumping from a high bridge. Crypto knew the drogue line hooked to the plane was running out as he plummeted down and away from the MC-141B. After counting four seconds, he felt the shock of the drogue line coming taut and releasing the T-10M main canopy. The olive drab rip-stop fabric billowed over his head as air filled the parachute. In rapid succession, the other Joes left the confines of the Star Lifter as the vehicle pallets fell from the back of the transport.

 

Crypto hung in the sky, dangling from the risers of his parachute while the giant fabric canopy spread above him caught the surrounding air and slowed his descent to the ground. Gripping the risers to keep from swinging around or going off course, Crypto was able to crane his head around enough to see the stream of open ‘chutes belonging to his teammates behind him, along with the multiple canopies of the special cargo handling parachutes that were bringing the squad’s vehicles safely to the ground.

 

The descent took only a few minutes, maybe four or five in Crypto’s reckoning, but it had felt like an eternity. All too soon, however, Crypto tucked his chin into his chest and saw that the ground was rushing up to meet him. He acted quickly, according to the procedures learned in the impromptu jump refresher school that was held prior to the mission. The first step was to unclip his rucksack and weapon container, which was connected to his main rig by a twenty-five foot long tether of high-tensile nylon parachute cord. The gear dropped beneath Crypto’s feet and safely landed. Without the extra weight of his combat equipment, Crypto wasn’t at risk for breaking any bones from heavy stresses when hitting the ground.

 

Crypto crossed his legs at the ankles and bent his knees slightly at the last possible second to cushion his landing. When his boots touched the rolling desert sand, it felt like he was landing upon a slab of solid cement. He rolled to one side immediately and hit the ground with a soft thud. The fall was finally broken when Crypto outstretched his arms and spread himself out on the sand.

 

Although Crypto was safely down, the blowing desert winds picked up his parachute and the canopy kept billowing, threatening to drag the lieutenant across the ground. Crypto pounded a fist on his chest, where the quick-release button was on his parachute harness. The quick-release severed the connection between his jump rig harness and the para-cord risers. When the risers were let go, the canopy lost its shape and finally settled onto the sand.

 

Crypto reached for the tether that tied him to his weapons and equipment. He followed it back to his gear, low-crawling through the sand until he found his rucksack. Physically exhausted, Crypto took a moment to shed his harness and gathered up his para-cord tether. Unpacking his Heckler and Koch MP-5 SD3 silenced assault sub-machinegun, Crypto popped a magazine into the weapon and then rested his head on the rucksack to catch his breath.

 

Taking a few moments to regain his composure, Crypto had to shield his eyes when a bright light illuminated the spot he was lying in and a dark figure holding the light approached. He instinctively raised his sub-machinegun and called out, “Carpet!”

 

The voice that belonged to the flashlight owner called back, “Bagger!”

 

Crypto relaxed and lowered his weapon, calling out, “Clear to approach.”

 

“Are you all right, Crypto?” said the voice of the shadowy flashlight owner, who shined an Army issued angle-head flashlight right into his face. A gloved hand reached out to touch his extremities, quickly checking for any broken bones or major injuries he may have sustained during the parachute landing.

 

“I’m fine, Scarlett, I promise,” Crypto insisted, flexing his arms and stretching his legs for the sergeant’s benefit. “Quit shining the light in my face, will ya? You’re killing my night vision!”

 

“Sorry,” Scarlett replied, turning the light off and glancing about the area. “We got off lucky and landed in the clear. No patrols are about.” She pointed in a direction where several other pinpricks of light moved about like flitting lightning bugs. “The guys have found the vehicles. Hopefully they’re all in good order.”

 

Crypto pinched his eyes shut to let the pupils get used to seeing in the darkness, and then planted the MP-5’s butt into the sand, steadying himself with the foregrip of the weapon. “On your feet, sir,” Scarlett said, slipping an arm under Crypto’s shoulders and helping him to stand up. Crypto slung his rucksack and combat webbing over his back with a grunt and then nodded that he was ready to move. Scarlett slung her rucksack over her own shoulder and then said, “Now we’re committed. Come on, Lieutenant, let’s rally up on the vehicles and get this show on the road!”

 

Scarlett and Crypto hauled themselves across the sand to the silhouettes of the three vehicles, where the other Joes were trying to maintain light and noise discipline. Using penlights instead of their government-issue angle head flashlights, the job of getting the vehicles un-strapped from their cargo pallets and ready to drive had stretched longer than expected.

 

Walkabout found Crypto and snapped to attention, brazenly saluting in the left-handed British manner. “Leftenant, the AWE Strikers are ready to roll and the Hummer and High-Mobility Trailer are hitched together. Everyone’s present and accounted for, and the equipment is all in good order. When we gonna go kick some arse?”

 

“We’re moving out now, Walkabout,” Crypto replied, passing the SAS colour sergeant a copy of the route map they had prepared in the Star Lifter. “You take Sure Shot and Grunt and handle point in an AWE Striker. Footloose, Hit & Run and Repeater have trail in the other AWE Striker. Everyone else piles into the Hummer. Make sure you have the handheld GPS units programmed and visible to the driver in each vehicle. Drivers and gunners, use blackout red headlamps and the night vision equipment for the weapons. And keep your TDC’s in standby mode in case we have to communicate in a snap. Lock and load all weapons. Let’s move out, Joes!”

 

In less than three minutes, the squad dispersed to their designated vehicles, and the three engines fired up with a dull roar. Trailing clouds of sand, the trio of Joe attack vehicles moved out into the open desert.

 

***

 

Floating on the Tigris River

Somewhere south of Baghdad

0210 hours, local time

 

A large fire lit up the shoreline of the Tigris River where a Rattler on its night combat air patrol had gone down. The tank-busting aircraft had spotted the Whale, laden with its G.I. Joe passengers and crew, running at full speed down the river. The Rattler tried three passes to strafe the vessel before Rampart had launched a Stinger anti-aircraft missile in response. The battle was short, but it exposed the Whale dangerously since Cobra’s central headquarters in Baghdad had been given the Whale’s location and direction of travel by the Strato-Viper air crew. It was only a matter of time until more units converged on the Tigris to investigate or intercept the hovercraft.

 

Cutter felt the cool air of the desert night blowing gently on his face as he throttled back the power on the Whale’s gas turbine engine and slowed the prop-fans in order to reduce the vessel’s noise signature.

 

“Noise, sound and light discipline from here on out, Joes,” Cutter said softly over the Whale’s public address intercom. “We’re going to have to run silent a while and drift with the current so that any night patrols have a harder time spotting us. Troop bay, relieve the weapons operators.” Throwing a few toggle switches on his control panel, Cutter killed most of the electrical lights on the Whale, other than two small bow lamps used to avoid obstructions and a number of red low-emission bulbs that burned throughout the combat, engine and maneuvering stations of the hovercraft.

 

Inside the Whale’s troop bay, Rampart sat down painfully on one of the padded bench seats while Deep-Six pulled out a first aid kit to dress his injuries. The SHARC pilot, despite some light injuries of his own sustained while escaping his sinking craft, looked over his teammate with a concerned expression. He played a small penlight over the naval gunner, identifying Rampart’s injuries as best as he could.

 

“Well, old buddy,” Deep-Six said slowly. “You did catch some of the tail fire from the Stinger you launched. There are some flash burns on your right arm and you were damn lucky that the Rattler’s 30mm gun is meant for big targets. That glancing hit only gave you some shrapnel cuts when you hit the deck with your ugly face.”

 

“Let’s hope eating sheet steel made an improvement,” Leatherneck said with a laugh, climbing down into the troop bay from his gun tub after being relieved by Tracker. “That was one helluva shot though, young blood.”

 

Rampart winced from pains in his arm and used his uninjured hand to snatch a tube of burn cream from Deep-Six’s hand. “Not to sound ungrateful, guys, but when it comes to my arm or your jokes, I’d rather cool these burns than grow old waiting for you to get off your asses and do it.”

 

The men shared a grim chuckle as Leatherneck settled into a seat and unscrewed the cap from a plastic canteen to take a swig of its contents. Deep-Six finished helping Rampart spread burn cream on his flash burns and then set about closing the shrapnel cuts with sterile pads and mesh bandages.

 

Falcon climbed over the Joes in the troop bay, who were pressed together rather closely, since the Whale’s inhabitable spaces were nearly at their full capacity. He spotted the soft light of the moon through a top hatch and climbed the ladder to get some fresh air. When he reached the hatchway, he climbed out into the pilothouse of the Whale and leaned on a steel bulkhead near where Cutter was steering the hovercraft.

 

“How are we doing, Cutter?” Falcon asked, trying to make small talk.

 

“We could be better,” Cutter replied matter-of-factly. “We burned up more fuel than we expected maneuvering out of Baghdad. That’s why I’ve had us riding the current at low speed where I can. It’s taking a lot of our fuel supply to keep the skirt inflated and the lift fans running so that we don’t sink. I’m about to tap into the fuel drums that we loaded in place of the depth charges on the stern rack. Our ammo and missiles might not hold out if the enemy knows how to fix us and we have to fight our way past Umm Qasr and out into the open waters of the Persian Gulf.”

 

Falcon clapped Cutter on the shoulder and leaned forward to look down the river. “We’re all in this together. So far, it’s been a fantastic adventure. Why not try one of these roads along the river? There’s bound to be a fuel tanker or convoy that we could bushwhack for something to feed into your gas distiller in the bilges. You think?”

 

Cutter glanced at the shoreline with a pair of image intensifiers. Small pinpricks of white light ran along the road, which meandered in and out as it followed the contours of the Tigris around scattered homesteads and petroleum transfer stations meant for moving crude oil between wells and refineries. “You might have an idea at that, Falcon. If we can find a fairly remote spot to ford ashore, every hand can hit the ground and nab one of these big commercial fuel bowsers. They still have to use the road network to move refined products since their infrastructure has been mostly committed to getting crude oil to market. It won’t necessarily help our ammunition situation, but we could top off our tanks and at least get enough gas to reach al-Basra.”

 

“I’m game, Cutter, and I’m sure the troops below won’t need convincing,” Falcon said. “It’s an issue of survival. We steal the fuel or we hide out until Tomahawk can send a large extraction party.”

 

As the two officers watched their surroundings to the tune of the water softly lapping against the Whale’s hull and the slow and steady hum of the lift fans that kept the hovercraft riding on its air cushion, Shipwreck emerged from his station at the radio console.

 

“Sorry to interrupt your strategic pow-wow, gentlemen,” the sailor said. “I finally got a message out on the TDC relay. I’ve advised the Flagg of our fuel and ammo situation, and they’re telling me we have to get to Umm Qasr to even hope for an extraction. Keel-Haul is going to move the Flagg and her escorts as close to the Tigris tributary as they can. But that’s the best they can do.”

 

“That tears it!” Cutter said, with frustration edging his voice. “We’re on our own until Umm Qasr. It looks like we have to play your idea, Falcon.”

 

“When do you want to hit the beach?” Falcon asked, playing Cutter’s image intensifiers along the riverbank while Cutter pulled the Whale closer to shore.

 

Cutter shook his head and then turned to Shipwreck. “What’s our current fuel state, ‘Wreck?”

 

Shipwreck looked at the deck plates before responding. “We’ve tapped out the first two of eight fifty-five gallon drums and the main fuel bunker is bone dry. Filling the main bunker could get us the last hundred miles to the sea, even past Umm Qasr, but we could use every advantage we can get. Clutch says the bilges are still sealed and the bilge flooding pumps can transfer fuel into the main bunker if you want to exchange ballast water for more gas and top off the drums on deck.”

 

“Then there’s no time like the present, Falcon,” Cutter decided, pointing towards the land. “There’s a sloped boat launching ramp about a thousand yards south of us. I’ll bring the Whale ashore there. You take every Joe that can handle a weapon and set up an ambush on the road. I’ll keep Deep-Six and Rampart in the gun tubs and cover you from where we set down.”

 

Falcon found the top rung of the ladder to the troop bay and lowered himself into the hatchway. “I’ll alert everyone to get ready.” The special operator ducked into the Whale’s hull and Cutter spun his helm wheel over to set course for the boat landing.

 

***

 

Somewhere over Iraqi airspace

0215 hours, local time

 

The three G.I. Joe jet aircraft headed south as fast as their engines could carry them, moving to escape the Baghdad southern air defenses. Flying in one of the Joes’ F/A-22A Raptor advanced fighters, Ghost Rider scanned the radar warning and threat receivers in his plane for potential enemy activity. Spotting an odd return on one of his RWR antennas, the stealth pilot broke his radio silence orders to warn his wingman in another F/A-22A and the MC-141B Star Lifter he was escorting. “Raptor One to Star Lifter, this is Ghost Rider. Get on your toes, Ace and Slipstream!”

 

“This breach of radio silence had better be good,” Ace replied on the tactical channel. As the senior instructor pilot of the Joe Team and an Air Force Major, he was unofficially the decision maker on any combat flight he participated in, despite some later additions to the aviation group who held the superior ranks of Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel.

 

“I have an unidentified radar return at medium range. Possible bandits along our flight path...” Ghost Rider’s voice trailed off as the combat computer in his cockpit decoded the radar returns and displayed an RWR warning, accompanied by a low warble as a warning tone. “Ace! We have enemy fighters! Their air search radar profile suggests a patrol of Cobra Hurricane VTOL jets!”

 

Ace and Slipstream sprung into action. Without even talking, both men disengaged the automatic pilot computer and grabbed onto their control yokes. Ace flexed the metal boom on his helmet microphone and his voice turned serious. “Ghost Rider, this is Ace. We’re going to try to fly this transport out to the safe zone like a fighter, low to the deck and engines hot! You and Maverick break off and jump those sons a’ bitches before they get the drop on us!”

 

“Roger that, Star Lifter; Good luck!” Ghost Rider wagged his wings to get Maverick’s attention and flashed his formation lights to the other F/A-22A just off his right wing. “Maverick, this is Ghost Rider. Roll right and engage zone five on the throttles. Warm up your weapons bay and dial up max range on the air-search radar. We’re going bandit hunting tonight! YO, JOE!”

 

The lizard camouflage painted MC-141B dove sharply for the deck as Ghost Rider and Maverick, piloting their Radar Absorbent Material (RAM)-coated Raptors rolled away to intercept the Cobra fighters they had detected.

 

***

 

Quarterback 307, E-3A Sentry AWACS

Over northeastern Saudi Arabia and Kuwait

 

“Supervisor!” one of the AWACS air controllers called out from his work station. “I have a Red Flock in Sector Five that originated at one of the Iraqi Air Force’s forward bases! Their projected track runs right across a blue flight of friendlies tagged with a security code!”

 

Technical Sergeant Billings, Quarterback 307’s controller supervisor, got out of his seat and walked through the air controllers’ cabin to look over the airman’s shoulder. He punched the security code into a data link terminal and nodded when he saw the designation on the screen indicated a sortie of G.I. Joe aircraft.

 

“Stay calm, Airman,” Billings insisted, resting a hand on the young controller’s shoulder. “We have two things going for us. The first is that the Red Flock is already in the Southern No-Fly Zone. We can wax their tails with our interceptors at any time without provocation. The second is that the Joes are some of the best pilots in the world. We can contact their command net and get them to launch backup planes to cover their security code flight’s escape.”

 

“What do we do, Sergeant?” the eager controller asked.

 

“You route the regular combat air patrols into Sector Five to form a picket along the Saudi border,” Billings replied. “I’ll mobilize the Joes and let them know they have a flight of planes in extremis.”

 

Because anything involving secure communications (namely, special operations air missions) had to be run carefully, the job fell upon TSgt. Billings to handle any intervention that would occur from Quarterback 307. He returned to his station and fired up his data link, in order to authenticate himself before making two voice transmissions on a secure satellite relay.

 

The first call went from the E-3A Sentry out to a carrier group cruising in the Persian Gulf. “U.S.S. Flagg, this is the duty controller on AWACS Quarterback Three-oh-seven. We have Joe aircraft trying to egress from Sector Five. My long-range radar crew onboard has detected a squadron of twenty-four Hurricane fighters flying combat air patrol along their exit route. Furball is imminent! I repeat a furball is imminent! Launch your Ready Five fighter section! Launch alert fighter aircraft!”

 

After sending the burst transmission to the Flagg battle group, Billings broke into the Operations unit at the Joe aircraft’s main land base. “Hafr-al-Batin Operations Shack, this is Quarterback Three-oh-seven. Scramble all available G.I. Joe flight crews into Sector Five to cover a returning flight of three aircraft. Counter-Air Operation profile; launch planes with air superiority ordnance. A Red Flock of twenty-four enemy aircraft in the Southern No-Fly Zone is the threat. Order all Joe pilots to launch!”

 

***

 

0230 hours, local time

 

“Tally ho!” Maverick shouted over his inter-plane frequency. “I have multiple bandits on radar and in visual contact! Angels five point five, twelve o’clock low. I count a dozen, maybe two dozen in total. Are you up to a game of chicken, Ghost Rider?”

 

Ghost Rider checked his radar and nodded to himself, while keying his radio transmit button. “Roger, Maverick. Tally ho, twelve o’clock low. Plot a radar solution for an opening missile salvo and then turn onto their tails. Let’s sweep these snakes out of our sky!”

 

“Star Lifter to Raptor One,” Ace called over the radio. “We’re kissing the deck and squeezing every ounce of speed this trash hauler has in her; I’ll be past the enemy tracks and in the safe zone in five minutes. Just hold them off long enough for us to get clear under their noses and then bug the hell out of there!”

 

“Raptor flight, roger that,” Ghost Rider replied. “Maverick, cue up your AMRAAM rack and open outer doors. Let’s do some damage!”

 

***

 

Meanwhile, on the west bank of the Tigris River:

 

Cutter brought the Whale to a stop between the cement boat ramp that led down to the river and a large abandoned oil transfer facility that had been bombed by a pre-emptive American air strike during the early days of the crisis. He shut the Whale down almost completely, as the flat hull bottom settled onto solid ground and pressure relief vents in the hovercraft’s air skirt hissed in protest. Without the lifting fans moving air into the rubberized cushion skirt, the hovercraft lost some semblance of volume and appeared like a slowly deflating balloon.

 

The bow ramp mechanically folded out to allow the Joes in the troop bay to dismount from the Whale. Under the cover provided by Deep-Six and Rampart in the machine gun tubs, Falcon moved the other Joes out into the night to seek out a supply of fuel for the thirsty craft.

 

“Everyone maintain light and sound discipline!” Falcon ordered in hushed whispers to each Joe as they disembarked the Whale. “Use red filters on the flashlights!”

 

The Joes locked and loaded their weapons and formed small fire teams of four or five. As each team formed, Falcon detailed them to scour the transfer facility for any usable fuel supplies and then to scout out possible ambush sites along the main paved highway that ran past some five hundred meters or so away from the riverbank.

 

It didn’t take much searching before Gung-Ho, Clutch, Mirage and Leatherneck located a fuel storage tank that had been missed by the American bomb run. Several rounds of 20mm had destroyed the piping that led out of the tank, but by the gauges built into the steel wall of the tall metal structure, it appeared to be nearly full, with at least four or five hundred gallons of refined petroleum, maybe more.

 

Clutch lifted his TDC to contact Falcon about the find. “Falcon,” the Marine whispered. “Clutch here. Our fire team has secured a possible fuel source. It looks like a few hundred gallons in a storage tank. Based on my fuel calculations aboard the Whale, if this baby is full up, our go-juice problems are solved. Rally on us; we’re about three hundred meters southwest of the main refinery structure.”

 

Falcon smiled, and could make a good bet that Cutter was leaping for joy upon hearing Clutch’s news on the TDC. He motioned for Lady Jaye, who was standing a few feet from him, to go back to the Whale for a fuel test kit before using his TDC to order the other teams to start looking for lengths of serviceable hose and a pump.

 

***

 

U.S.S. Flagg

Somewhere in the Persian Gulf

0235 hours, local time

 

Captain Shaun Tolliver, the designated commanding officer of the U.S.S. Flagg, leaped into action while a Command Master Chief ran towards Flag Country to find Admiral Keel-Haul. Standing in the main bridge of the carrier, he could see the glittering lights of F/A-18E Super Hornets and XP-14F Sky Strikers being moved around the launch deck as they were launched and recovered from their combat air patrols. The Flagg air wing, much like the Regular Navy’s air wings in the region, had been flying defensive patrol missions and close air support sorties over Iraq on a twenty-four-hour basis.

 

Captain Tolliver grabbed for a communications panel and engaged the 7-MC, which was the phone circuit that connected the ship’s flight operations units with the bridge. “Get me the Air Boss on the line,” the captain ordered into the sound-powered phone.

 

After a moment of shuffling, the voice of one of the Air Division’s watch officers answered the phone. “Air Boss, Captain. What can we do you for, sir?”

 

Captain Tolliver spoke urgently into the phone. “Scramble the Ready Five flight and sound the general alarm in the Aviation spaces! I want all available Sky Strikers and Super Hornets launched to cover the withdrawal of a black air mission over Iraq!”

 

The Air Boss acknowledged his orders and switched his phone to a general messaging circuit. “General Quarters! General Quarters! All Aviation hands man battle stations! Scramble the Ready Fives!”

 

Meanwhile, on the bridge, Captain Tolliver was still on the phone, discussing the carrier’s alert status with the Combat Information Center, and preparing to give the battle group’s escorts new orders. Admiral Everett Colby, Keel-Haul, burst onto the bridge space from one of the inside gangways that led there from Flag Country, where the Admiral’s quarters were.

 

“Admiral on the bridge!” called out a communications petty officer near the door. The crewmen stiffened to listen to any orders from Keel-Haul.

 

“Carry on, men,” Keel-Haul said, walking over to Captain Tolliver’s chair. “What’s the alert all about?”

 

“AWACS over the Southern No-Fly Zone has detected an entire squadron of Cobra fighters,” the captain reported. “And they’re about to cross with Ace’s mission to insert the Joe squad into Camp Al-Shu’a.”

 

“No shit,” Keel-Haul cursed. His mind raced with potential scenarios that Tomahawk would need the Flagg to support. “What about Cutter’s Whale? Where are they now?”

 

“Cutter’s unit’s cover was blown and they had to fight their way out of a noose in Baghdad after picking up their package. We can’t support them until they reach Umm Qasr, but they reported being bingo fuel about a hundred miles upriver. We may have to launch a flight of Seahawks to lift them out and combat loss the hovercraft.”

 

“Let’s not consider that eventuality without trying to get them out,” Keel-Haul instructed. “Cutter and Falcon are resourceful officers. I know they will find a way to raid for fuel or try another strategy to bring the hovercraft out.” After a moment’s pause, Keel-Haul stopped looking out at the Persian Gulf waters and turned to face Tolliver. “Contact CIC, Captain. Order the battle group to steam up the al-Basra Channel. We’re going to exercise a little gunboat diplomacy to bring our Joes home.”

 

“Aye, aye, sir,” Captain Tolliver replied. “We’ll park the whole battle group right on Saddam’s front doorstep and drop every piece of ordnance we can on him if he fucks with our boys.” Grabbing for the 8-MC phone, the captain passed along Keel-Haul’s orders to the battle group’s combat information center deep inside the Flagg, which issued the appropriate orders to the escorting cruiser and frigates of the carrier’s group.

 

Keel-Haul ran out onto a bridge wing and felt the cool blast of the moderate trade winds of the Persian Gulf as the Flagg heeled into the wind to launch fighters. The whines of afterburning jet engines rose like a troop of banshees from the flight deck as four Air Green Shirts flying F/A-18E Super Hornets on Ready Five duty leaped into the sky to help their Joe comrades.

 

***

 

The squadron of Cobra Hurricane fighters filled the display screen of Ghost Rider’s AN/APG-65 multi-mode radar system, and both he and Maverick, flying closely on his wing, were close enough to the enemy formation that their radar warning receivers made a shrill tone as they picked up the Hurricane fighters’ air combat radars.

 

“Launch a full spread now, Maverick!” Ghost Rider shouted, pulling on the weapons trigger in the cockpit of his F/A-22A Raptor. Below and behind the cockpit, thin aluminum panels coated in radar absorbent material (‘RAM’) folded away from the sleek fighter’s fuselage to reveal the jet’s hidden weapons bay.

 

A brace of four AIM-122A ASRAAM (Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile) shots dropped from the bay, along with four more from Maverick’s F/A-22A. The first-stage chemical starter charges ignited the tiny rocket motors in the weapons’ tails, and they fanned out in front of the Joe stealth planes on blue-white tail fire.

 

“ASRAAM launch away!” Maverick called into his radio. “I have four birds running hot, straight and normal!”

 

“Break left and turn into the enemy squadron’s tails, Maverick,” Ghost Rider replied, turning his fighter east to follow the original course of the Hurricanes.

 

The salvo of incoming ASRAAM missiles took many of the Hurricane pilots by surprise. Since the F/A-22A fighters were essentially invisible to the Cobras’ radar systems, the appearance of the missiles on their rear quarter was inexplicable. Some of the rookie pilots thought they were having a systems malfunction. They were the unlucky ones. For each ASRAAM of the opening launch, a Hurricane went down, dropping the odds of the dogfight to eight Hurricanes for each of the Joe Raptors.

 

“Yahoo! Splash eight of those slimy Cobras!” Maverick called out elatedly. “I’m closing to gun range!”

 

“Sierra Hotel, wingman,” Ghost Rider replied, using the phonetic abbreviation of the pilot’s slang phrase “shit hot”, a form of congratulations. “Cover my wing and engage the enemy squadron in close quarters! YO, JOE!”

 

***

 

“Hurricane Three-Five to Hurricane Three-One. How the hell did we lose a third of our squadron?” the Aero-Viper pilot said to his squadron commander. His voice was edged in fear. “I don’t see anything on radar!”

 

“Three-One to Three-Five and all elements,” Vapor, the squadron commander in Hurricane-31, replied. “I think there are G.I. Joe Stealth Fighters out there! Break out into pairs, star pattern, and take evasive maneuvers. Divide into flights of four and fan out vertically for zone defense. Everyone stay sharp and sing out if you spot anything visually! Break off, on my mark!”

 

Despite the Joes’ decimation of the rookie members of the Hurricane squadron, the veteran Aero-Viper pilots who were in charge of the sortie knew air combat tactics and how to take a defensive stance for their force. As Ghost Rider and Maverick lined up directly behind the large Cobra formation, the planes split off in every direction, pairs of fighters climbing, diving and circling all at once.

 

“Holy shit, Ghost Rider!” Maverick shouted. “They’re dispersing!”

 

“Looks like a standard defensive tactic,” Ghost Rider replied. “Let’s pick a pair and go in with guns blazing! Follow me; I’m rolling left to engage!”

 

Ghost Rider’s F/A-22A turned to the left and then banked away after a pair of Hurricanes making a level turn towards the north. Maverick was a split second behind Ghost Rider, jerking his control stick to the left and throttling his engines up to full military power.

 

“Hurricane Three-Eight to Three-One. I see two black shapes riding orange tail fire that don’t look like ours! They’re on my six and charging hard!” The Aero-Viper pilot gripped onto his stick and pulled harder into his turn, while his free hand reached for the Master Arm switch on his control panel. “Air-to-air weapons armed!”

 

“Safeties off,” Ghost Rider murmured to himself as the Hurricane filled the pipper of his gun sight, projected on the Plexiglas surface of his Heads-Up Display. The Joe pilot squeezed the trigger on his control stick and the nose of his plane hummed as a stream of hot 20mm rounds spewed from the M-61A1 cannon mounted under the cockpit.

 

The stream of tracer bullets from Ghost Rider’s cannon made long red streaks through the night sky until the cascade of eerie color crossed with the Hurricane, slicing into the fighter’s skin and tearing smoky holes out of the Cobra aircraft.

 

“This is Hurricane Three-Eight! I’m hit!” the Aero-Viper at the controls of Hurricane-38 screamed in horror. “All hydraulic systems are out! Electrical fire in the cockpit! AAARGH! I’m going down!”

 

“Break now, Maverick!” Ghost Rider called on his radio. “Take the wingman!”

 

Maverick rolled his plane’s wings level and aimed for Hurricane-37, who was yawing to the right to escape Ghost Rider’s gun stream. Maverick triggered his M-61A1 and another string of red bullet paths filled the night. The Raptor’s gun stream crossed the Hurricane’s flight path in front of the evading fighter and stitched through the cockpit and avionics bay. The pilot of Hurricane-37 didn’t have a chance to call for help, as several of the 20mm bullets ripped through the thin aluminum skin of his cockpit and tore his flesh to shreds.

 

As Hurricane-37 plummeted towards the desert floor, Maverick called out gleefully, “That makes ten! We’re both aces high today, Ghost Rider!”

 

Ace’s voice coming over the Joes’ channel broke the air of adrenaline in the Raptor cockpits. “Star Lifter One to Raptor Flight. We’re clear of Indian Country and making our run-in to Hafr-al-Batin. You hot dogs can egress the engagement any time now!”

 

“Sorry, Ace. No can do,” Ghost Rider replied on the Joe frequency. “We’re rather tied up right now. Bug out south, good buddy. Your tail is covered!”

 

Another voice, young and excited, broke into the Joes’ radio channel. “Raptors One and Two, you’re no longer on the run! This is Scramble Flight, two Joint Strike Fighters and three Super Hornets! We’re three minutes out and have the Hurricanes in sight! A Combat Air Patrol from the Flagg is on the way to back us up with Super Hornets and Sky-Strikers! Stand by to be rescued! YO JOE!”

 

“Maverick, the cavalry’s here!” Ghost Rider exclaimed. “Cease EMCON and activate your IFF transponder! Let’s make sure our buddies can see us out here!”

 

Hurricane fighters broke in every direction as the Joe relief force streaked through the engagement area, afterburners lit and glowing red-hot as the aircraft sliced through the mass of dodging airplanes. Green and red tracers from the planes’ 20mm cannons drew glowing trails across the black background of the night sky.

 

“Fight’s on!” Dogfight shouted over the radio, banking into a turn as a Hurricane exploded ahead of his X-35 Joint Strike Fighter. “Cool-Hand, Mud-Mover, Sky Striker and Zephyr, let’s go clean out the air pollution up here!”

 

***

 

West bank of the Tigris River

100 miles from Umm Qasr

0250 hours, local time

 

Clutch strained at a hand crank that was connected to a portable fuel pump. He sweated profusely despite the cold of the desert night, until the rusting crank began to turn. “I’ve got it turning!” the Marine mechanic called to his teammates as fuel began to flow from the large storage tank into the long rubber feed hose that ran to the parked hovercraft.

 

Shipwreck jiggled a handheld nozzle over one of the fifty-five gallon fuel drums, waiting for the fuel to flow from the storage tank. He almost leaped out of his skin when the gasoline started flowing through the nozzle and into the drums. “Cutter!” the sailor yelled up to the pilothouse. “We have go-juice flowing!”

 

“Then top us off, Shipwreck,” Cutter ordered, scanning the area with his image intensifiers. “I just hope to God a Cobra patrol doesn’t find us hunkered down like this.”

 

***

 

0345 hours, local time

 

The TDC units on every Joe’s hip crackled with an excited message from Big Ben, who was leading a fire team made up of himself, Mutt, Zap and Rock & Roll. The four men were farthest from the Whale and watching the main highway for signs of trouble. “All elements, this is Big Ben. Contact alert! Grab cover and concealment! I have several headlights heading our way! They look like Cobra STUN vehicles!”

 

“God dammit,” Shipwreck swore from where he stood over the hovercraft’s fuel filling port. “We’re not done gassing up yet. I still have to rig the bilge pumps and put more go-juice into the ballast water bilge!”

 

Cutter nodded at Shipwreck, also motioning to Deep Six and Rampart to man the gun tubs. He lifted his TDC to his mouth and whispered, “Joe elements, this is Cutter. We need to buy more time to finish taking on fuel. Everyone get eyes on the vehicles if they stop and draw them away from where Gung-Ho and his team are pumping out the tanks. If at all possible, take them out silently and don’t let any of them get word out to their commanders. Good luck everyone!”

 

After Cutter finished giving his instructions, he pulled his trusty Colt Combat Commander cal-.45 automatic out and loaded it. Once the pistol’s safety was reset, it went back into the leather holster he wore on his hip. Blowing a short, sharp whistle at Shipwreck, Cutter hoisted an M-4 carbine by its foregrip and tossed it to the former gunner’s mate, and then selected another for himself.

 

Torpedo and Wet-Down low-crawled across the dusty ground as they took up a position facing the main entrance to the fuel transfer facility. In the shadows of the destroyed storage tanks, they could see their fellow fire team members, Tracker and Wet-Suit, scrambling up a maintenance ladder to take over the high ground. Tracker was soon crouched in a sniping position, his scoped assault rifle leveled to a large parking lot and loading area between the storage tanks and the main cement buildings of the facility.

 

Falcon and Lady Jaye were working their way to cover Torpedo and Wet-Down when Falcon was startled by an unexpected tap on his shoulder. He spun around with his Iraqi AK-74 commando assault rifle raised defensively and whispered angrily, “Dammit, Agent Guilford! What the hell are you doing out here? You’re supposed to be on the Whale!”

 

“You need all the help you can get protecting the Whale and the pump team until we’re ready to bug out of here,” Guilford replied, brushing a few locks of hair from her face and reaching for a compact of black camouflage makeup that Jaye was about to stick in a BDU pocket. “Getting me home isn’t worth a damn if we all get pinned down and killed here trying to scrounge gas for the ride!”

 

The quick-witted CIA agent had grabbed a lightweight AKSU-74 sub-machinegun from one of the weapon crates she was using to conceal the data disks the Joes were smuggling out of Iraq. She loaded it with a thirty-round magazine and slung the sub-gun over her shoulder, using Jaye’s camouflage makeup to darken her lightly-tanned features. “Let’s go see what’s up.”

 

“Not so fast, Agent Guilford,” Falcon said firmly, grabbing onto the woman’s shoulder as she tried to shove past him. “You will stay behind me at all times and do exactly as I say. You will hold your fire as long as I tell you, and you will shoot when I tell you to. There’s no room for cowboy... or cowgirl... antics here! Got it?”

 

“I read you, Lieutenant,” Guilford said with a pout crossing her lips.

 

“Keep that pump going, Leatherneck!” Clutch urged as he crouched behind a large section of piping that protruded from the ground. He had been relieved at the hand pump some time past when his arms practically gave out. While Clutch peered cautiously into the shadows where the sounds of approaching vehicles began to grow, he held Leatherneck’s M-16/M-203 combination rifle out in front of his body, the butt jammed into the sand and ready to raise into firing position.

 

“I know, I know,” Leatherneck groaned, straining at the rapidly deteriorating metal hand crank. “Just you keep an eye out for the enemy, Clutch!”

 

“Pipe down, you two,” Gung-Ho said in a hushed voice. “Mirage and I are going to hide over by the foreman’s shack we checked out before. If the shit goes down, we’ll be the last line of defense before they reach you two and the fuel supply.” Without waiting for any response, Gung-Ho and Mirage sprinted to the wooden shack and ducked behind it into prone positions.

 

***

 

0350 hours, local time

 

The pinpricks of light that pierced the night sky grew to the glow of large spotlights as three Cobra STUN wheeled vehicles turned off from the main highway and into the bombed-out transfer station the Joes had occupied. Stopping at the gate, the Motor Vipers that manned the enemy vehicles waved at two large tanker trucks that were following them in from the road. The civilian gasoline bowsers, driven by Cobra Techno-Vipers, pulled past the armed vehicles and lined up in the open parking area, their drivers quickly shutting down the tankers’ noisy diesel engines.

 

One of the Techno-Vipers climbed out of his tanker, carrying a clipboard to the lead STUN, where a Cobra lieutenant sat in one of the light vehicle’s front-end gun cupolas. “Sir,” the Techno-Viper said. “This is the place. The bomb damage assessment team’s inspection from the last American raid on this area reported there was some undamaged storage tanks on this facility. We should be able to recover a few hundred gallons of refined fuel to bring back to our storage depot.”

 

“Snap to it then, soldier,” the officer said sharply. He raised his fist in the air so that the accompanying Motor Vipers would pay attention. He shouted to the group, “Vipers! Dismount and scour the facility for fuel supplies! Post a guard with the vehicles! Move your lazy Cretin asses out right now!”

 

***

 

“They’re fanning out,” Wet-Suit whispered into his TDC. “I think I can count maybe fifteen to twenty Motor Vipers and Techno-Vipers. I’ll bet dollars to donuts they came for what we’re stealing. Everybody, stay on your toes!”

 

Wet-Suit raised an image intensifier to his eyes and tapped Tracker on the shoulder. “Range is three hundred fifty meters to the vehicles, declination about twenty-five meters. Windage is minimal. If they get too nosy, let’s knock out their fuel bowsers with a surgical tracer shot to their gas tanks. Then we let all Hell break loose.”

 

“You just train me onto a target, and I’ll hit it for you, Wet-Suit,” Tracker whispered, pressing his rifle tightly into the crook of his arm and silently taking off the safety.

 

As soon as two of the Motor Vipers were out of sight and earshot of the officer, they leaned lazily against a long concrete wall and lit up. “This is my first escort assignment with that new butter bar, and I’m already sick of the mother fucker,” said Viper Smitts, the taller of the two soldiers.

 

“Tell me about it,” Viper Tyler, the five-foot-three and very muscular dynamo said as he puffed away next to Smitts. “That bastard volunteers us for every damn milk run there is because he’s taking that rumor to heart.”

 

“Rumor?” Smitts asked, raising an eyebrow. “What rumor?”

 

“Didn’t you hear about it at the last AOR briefing from that camel-jockey Iraqi intelligence man?” Tyler asked. “There have been reports of a secret G.I. Joe operation that blew its cover in Baghdad. They were last located somewhere on the Tigris River, in OUR area of responsibility. I’ll bet Second Lieutenant Shit-For-Brains over there wants our meager party to catch them so he can look good for the Commander.”

 

“There’s little chance of that,” Smitts said, coughing as he breathed in a large quantity of his cigarette smoke. “If the Joes were in Baghdad, they wouldn’t be that dumb to blow their cover. And if they’re here and wanted to take us out, we’d already be dead. There isn’t enough of us to take on a commando team.”

 

A disembodied voice whispered from the darkness behind the crumbling cement wall. “You’re right on both counts, sucker...”

 

Both Motor Vipers heard the voice simultaneously and reached for their holstered Czech vz-61 machine pistols, flicking on their military flashlights and playing the beams along the wall. “Come out where we can see you,” Smitts urged. “Come out and we won’t kill you!” He turned to his smoking partner and pointed to the vehicles. “Tyler, go get some help, just in case we’re not hearing things!”

 

Tyler turned to run back toward the vehicles and didn’t notice that a loop of parachute cord had been lowered from above. When he stepped forward, he felt the cord tighten around his neck and a powerful jerk hoisted the shorter soldier up into the air.

 

Zap smiled down at the Viper as he alighted onto the ground like a deadly cat and yanked the cord taut. “Surprise! _Feliz Navidad_ , mother fucker!”

 

Smitts couldn’t even turn to help his friend as Tyler choked and sputtered against the para-cord garrote Zap was strangling him with. As he spun around, a large chunk of cement landed squarely on top of his helmet, crushing his skull and dropping him to the ground. Big Ben leapt from the wall with his combat knife drawn and dealt Smitts a coup de grace by plunging it into his heart and then jamming his boot into the Viper’s jaw to keep his mouth shut as his life faded away.

 

Tyler’s hands shot up to his neck, clawing at the parachute cord that was digging into his throat and crushing his windpipe. He couldn’t scream out for help, much less draw a breath. Big Ben leveled the stainless steel blade of his Ka-Bar knife, now darkened with Smitts’ blood, and thrust it right into Tyler’s guts, carving him up like a Spring turkey, until his entrails spilled out onto the ground and the Motor Viper slumped forward, cutting off any last breaths of air he had.

 

“Nice going, Bennett,” Zap whispered. “You’ve got some _cojones_ for sticking pigs like that.”

 

“I like to keep things personal,” Big Ben replied with an evil smile, as he wiped his blade clean on Tyler’s blood-soaked uniform. He made a small hand motion to Zap as the pair crept off to stalk more victims.

 

***

 

“Hey, Benson! Techno-Viper Benson!” a Motor Viper NCO shouted across the parking lot as he approached the series of damaged and destroyed fuel storage tanks. “This one by the foreman’s shack looks like it survived! Come over here and give it a look-see!”

 

Clutch saw the two flashlights bobbing along the ground like a pair of drunken dragonflies. He shrunk back against the storage tank support that he was crouching behind and brought Leatherneck’s assault rifle up to his cheek, aiming down the iron sights at the light sources. He hoped that Gung-Ho and Mirage would get the better of the Vipers before he had to fire and give away his position.

 

When the Vipers approached the foreman’s shack to check the storage tank adjacent to it, Gung-Ho and Mirage had silently moved behind a large piece of steel tank cladding that had been blown against the good tank by one of the bomb blasts from the air strike. Mere inches from each other’s face, the two men communicated silently and carefully with hand signals.

 

Gung-Ho pointed to his eyes and then flashed two fingers, indicating he had only counted two men approaching. Mirage knew what the veteran Force Recon Marine was thinking of doing. He pulled out his Ka-Bar combat knife and thumped the hilt softly against his chest, and Gung-Ho nodded. Gung-Ho made a walking motion with his fingers and drew them in an imaginary circle and gave Mirage a thumbs-up. Mirage nodded slowly, slung his assault rifle over his shoulder, and held the Ka-Bar in his teeth as he low-crawled out from behind the cover. After silently counting thirty seconds, Gung-Ho slid out from behind the steel cladding and worked his way to the foreman’s shack.

 

The Motor Viper NCO reached the foreman’s shack and played his flashlight through the smashed-out glass windows of the rickety wooden structure. All of a sudden, he snapped his body backwards in a knee-jerk reaction, when he saw an evil-looking face covered in green and black paint streaks appearing on the other side of the shack.

 

Gung-Ho had sprung to his feet with Ka-Bar at the ready, and as the Motor Viper reached for his machine pistol’s holster, the Marine flung the heavy combat knife through the shack and into the center of the Motor Viper’s chest. It only took the Marine a dozen steps to be on the side where the Motor Viper was clutching at his chest, trying fruitlessly to withdraw the deeply-imbedded knife on his own. Gung-Ho kicked the Viper to the ground with one swift blow from his combat boot, and then crouched over the enemy soldier, cupping both hands over his mouth to stifle the intended screams of pain. Within moments, the Motor Viper went limp and his chest settled from the last breath leaving his lungs.

 

Meanwhile, Techno-Viper Benson was walking towards Clutch and Leatherneck’s position near the hand pump. In the dark and moving shadows his flashlight only had limited range. He was looking at the metal-clad walls of the storage tank, trying to see if there was any damage that indicated the vessel wasn’t able to hold any fuel. As he stepped forward, the Viper’s boot struck something hard resting on the ground.

 

Bringing the flashlight down, Benson saw that it was a length of reddish rubber hose that ran across the open ground. Instantly suspicious, Benson turned to get the Motor Viper’s attention, and instead found Mirage standing about five feet away. When the Viper’s flashlight came up, it first reflected off the shiny knife blade and then Mirage’s pearly white teeth as he smiled a deadly grin.

 

Techno-Viper Benson thought in the split second he had to pull out his own combat dagger on its thigh sheath, but rightly figured that Mirage could beat him to the draw with the Ka-Bar already out. Instead, he snaked his free hand up along his side and unclipped one of the large metal tools attached to his backpack. Swinging the tool around hard, Benson tried to make contact with Mirage’s knife and disarm him.

 

Mirage sidestepped the blow from the large, arm-length crescent wrench and tried to turn his knife arm in so he could stab at the Techno-Viper. But Benson was adept at hefting his equipment, and swung in the reverse direction without blinking. On the second attempt, Benson made contact and Mirage dropped his combat knife, clutching at his right wrist where the wrench struck him.

 

Benson recovered from his swing and tried to bring the wrench up over his head to deliver a powerful vertical blow to Mirage’s head. The Marine stepped in closer to the technician and reached up with both hands to parry the wrench. Grabbing the shaft between Benson’s hands and the wrench head, Mirage leaned into the downward blow and deflected the wrench safely to one side. Both men struggled, occasionally stepping in and out of the small beam of Benson’s flashlight.

 

The sounds of the scuffle carried towards the paved parking lot area, where the Cobra Officer began to get suspicious that some of his men hadn’t returned. He quickly rallied the remainder of his troopers and motioned for them to spread out and walk towards the tank farm.

 

Benson was slightly taller than Mirage, and thus had the advantage of height when he wanted to bear down on the Marine with the wrench. He jerked back in a surprise move and was able to break Mirage’s grip on the wrench. A knee to Mirage’s gut forced the Marine to fall backwards, and he landed on his butt, just inches away from where his Ka-Bar had fallen.

 

“Well, well,” Techno-Viper Benson said evilly. “The rumors were true, and I found you. Too bad the Commander is going to get a dead trophy...” Benson raised the crescent wrench over his head and was about to deliver a crushing downward blow, when Mirage swung his Ka-Bar up in front of his body and cut across Benson’s midriff.

 

As the pain began to register in Benson’s nervous system, Mirage was flaring out with his feet, kicking the Cobra trooper in the belly and driving him back. Benson stumbled on the rubber hose and fell to the sand with a soft thud. Mirage wasted no moments in getting atop the Viper and stabbing him over and over in the midriff and chest while Benson thrashed futilely to protect himself. Mirage angrily thrust the knife into the Viper’s neck and Benson gurgled as his throat and lungs filled with blood.

 

***

 

“Oh, shit,” Wet-Suit cursed under his breath. “They’re all on the move, heading for the fuel tanks. There’s no way Gung-Ho and company can take on a dozen fired-up Cobras.”

 

“Let’s put ‘Plan A’ into action then,” Tracker whispered, lowering a night vision lens over his Starlight scope. He turned on a small laser dot and focused it on one of the fuel trucks’ gas tanks. He gently squeezed the trigger on his tracer-loaded rifle, and a fiery bullet barked from the end of the barrel.

 

The tracer round streaked down from the SEAL commandos’ position and struck the bowser’s curved metal fuel tank. The resulting sparks and heat ignited the diesel fuel in the tank and the whole front end burst into flame as the hungry fire consumed everything flammable in the truck’s cab.

 

“Jesus Christ!” Falcon exclaimed quite by accident when the fuel truck exploded. He reached out to force Lady Jaye and Agent Guilford to the ground, laying his own body across theirs to shield them from any flying shrapnel. Upon finding themselves out of range of the blast, Falcon dusted himself off and flipped off the safety on his AK-74. “Come on, the jig is up. Use aimed, single shots only, you two. We have them in a good kill zone; don’t get dead out there.”

 

Falcon clicked on his TDC and whispered, “All elements, this is Falcon. Engage the enemy cluster from cover by crossfire. Stop them now! Fire at will!”

 

All of the Joes were equipped with some form of night vision or aiming device for their weapons. The MOUT ambush drill had been practiced many times over in kill houses and training villages. All of the Joe troopers found cover and stayed in place, using their weapons and the Cobra troopers’ flashlights to illuminate their targets. In order not to be confused with those being ambushed, the Joes didn’t opt to maneuver unless they were directly threatened.

 

Clutch and Mirage opened up first, to the right of the Viper skirmish line, the suppressed punch-punch-punch sound of their M-16’s sounding like steam chuffs from a distant railway locomotive. From the high ground, Wet-Suit and Tracker opened up as well, and thoroughly confused the Cobras since their fire was behind the enemy troopers.

 

Cutter heard the blast from the exploding fuel bowser and waved to Shipwreck to get under cover. He pulled his pistol and rested it on the control panel of the hovercraft while he ducked behind the Kevlar and steel armored panels of the pilothouse with carbine raised. “How are we doing with the go-juice, ‘Wreck?”

 

Shipwreck had been startled by the truck explosion, but didn’t miss a drop of fuel that he was pumping into the ballast bilges. “We’re good to go anytime, skipper,” the sailor replied. “What the bloody blue blazes was that?”

 

“It’s an ambush that I wouldn’t want to be on the business end of, ‘Wreck,” Cutter replied. “Okay, toss the hose and seal up the bilge port. Get back in here and help me with the main engine re-start so we can get the air cushion skirt filled and snatch up our ground-pounders.”

 

***

 

“Defensive ring!” the Cobra Officer yelled to his surviving men. “They’re all over the place, whoever they are! Kill them all!”

 

Many of the Joes’ and Cobras’ shots missed, but with the firing aids, the Joes began to score critical hits on the Cobra troops. Doggedly, the Vipers hung on and kept probing with gunfire in any direction they thought the Joes were shooting from.

 

The rookie Cobra butter bar lost his nerve at being in the middle of the killing zone of an ambush. He dove clear of the defensive ring his Vipers were holding, and scrambled towards the large cement building. Upon reaching a corner of it, he saw the dull red glow of the Whale’s safety lights and Shipwreck’s silhouette as he scrambled across the upper deck of the hovercraft. The Officer plucked free the cotter pin from a fragmentation hand grenade and tossed it at the Joe craft, shouting, “COBRAAA!!!”

 

The frag grenade detonated in the sand just short of Deep-Six’s gun tub, on the port side of the hovercraft. The orange blast bathed the Whale in an eerie glow as Deep-Six slewed his twin guns around and raked the Cobra officer’s hiding place with steady bursts of fifty-caliber fire. It ended up being a lucky head shot from Cutter’s carbine that finally killed the butter bar, dropping him to the sand as he tried to pluck another grenade from his combat webbing.

 

***

 

“Mop ‘em up!” Falcon shouted, sprinting forward from behind a long stack of empty fuel drums with Lady Jaye and Agent Guilford on his heels. He dove to the ground and landed hard on his belly, firing his AK-74 from the hip and then swinging it around so the butt was seated against his shoulder.

 

Mutt and Rock & Roll also charged from their covering position to pin the remaining Vipers down in the deadly crossfire the Joes had laid down. Rock & Roll’s RPK-74 light machine gun chattered angrily in the night as the infantryman cut the Vipers down using short streams of bullets.

 

Meanwhile, from the direction of the burning fuel bowsers, the second truck had caught fire when the flames from the first had spread across. The volatile cargoes of both transporters heated up and detonated soon after. The large explosion masked the sounds of three smaller explosions, the result of Zap and Big Ben spiking the engine compartments of the Cobra convoy’s Stuns with incendiary grenades.

 

Clutch lobbed a grenade at the tightening circle of Cobra Vipers with Leatherneck’s M-203 grenade launcher, and the 40mm antipersonnel round detonated among the enemy troops with a ground-shaking blast. After the dust and smoke settled, the Cobra weapons had fallen silent, and any survivors of the group moaned in pain from mortal wounds the Joes’ weapons fire inflicted.

 

One by one, flashlights were clicked on, and the blades of sharp, steel combat knives flashed in the night as the Joes finished off the Cobra troops, mercifully cutting their throats or plunging knife blades into their chests so that they wouldn’t be left to die slowly.

 

The whole group clustered together and Falcon looked everyone over. Their faces were covered in dust and grime from being around the oil facility, and none of them looked less than haggard. “Are you all intact?” he asked slowly.

 

The group nodded quietly as they policed up the dead and dying Cobras, dragging them into a pile near the refinery building. Then they collected any usable weapons and ammunition the enemy troops were carrying and assembled back at the Whale’s resting place.

 

***

 

0430 hours, local time

 

The Joes returned to the Whale and saw Cutter, Shipwreck and Rampart standing around a charred section of the hovercraft’s rubber air cushion skirt. The trio was sadly shaking their heads as they picked at the small tears the Cobra Officer’s grenade fragments had ripped in the material.

 

“What’s the bad news?” Falcon asked, seeing the dour look on Cutter’s face.

 

“One of the Cobras got a grenade off,” the Whale skipper said. “The skirt is mostly intact, but it can’t hold a cushion of air with holes in it.” The Coast Guardsman shook his head as he thought about the repairs. “We could fix this. There’s some water-soluble rubber dope sealant in the Whale, but it takes time to mix, apply and cure. I think we’re going to be here for a while.”

 

“How much time, do you figure?” Falcon asked.

 

“Mixing the dope up is easy,” Cutter continued. “But it takes four hours minimum to cure. With the extent of the shrapnel damage to this skirt, we’ll have to coat the inner and outer surfaces, let the dope cure, and then try the blast fans. If we miss any of the damage, we have to go through the skirt all over again. It could be the better part of a half a day.”

 

Grumbles came from the other Joes as they all listened to the bad news. “Well, we take the good with the bad,” Falcon said. “Lady Jaye, organize a rotating security watch and send some Joes to scour the Cobra equipment for any supplies we can use while we’re waiting.” The Special Forces officer pointed eastward as the horizon began to turn orange. “Sun’s coming up. Let’s unpack some camouflage material and break up the Whale’s silhouette so air patrols don’t spot her. Shipwreck, you’re going to have to call the office again while the rest of us get started on the repairs.”

 

Cutter turned to face the other Joes and waved for Shipwreck to return to the hovercraft’s pilothouse to make the call to KKMC. “You heard the Lieutenant. Snap to, everyone! The sooner we fix this pig, the sooner we’re out of here!”

 

***

 

G.I. Joe Command-Operations Center

King Khalid Military City, Saudi Arabia

0440 hours, local time

 

“This is Helmsman Six, Hatchet One. Go ahead with flash traffic.” The duty signals controller yawned and lazily sipped at his coffee expecting the report from Shipwreck to be routine. He flipped through a map book of the area around Umm Qasr, half expecting to give the Whale crew coordinates for their exit into the Persian Gulf and safety.

 

“Flash traffic, urgent,” Shipwreck said. “Enemy ground unit engaged while taking on emergency re-fuel on the west bank of the Tigris River, approximately one hundred miles from end zone. We’re gassed up and ready to move, but unable to float due to enemy-inflicted damage. Skipper estimates eight to twelve hours on site for repairs. Request relay to Big Mama to advise our recovery time schedule will not be met.”

 

The signals operator was so surprised by the development he accidentally hit the panic button on his console, sounding a klaxon throughout the command center and rousing the duty officer. “Roger that, Hatchet One. Big Mama and her children were coming to you at Umm Qasr. We’ll turn them back and plan a new exit route for you. Check in every two hours with a progress report.”

 

“Hatchet One, wilco,” Shipwreck replied quickly. “Over and out.”

 

By the time Steeler arrived to find out what the alarm was about, the communications tech had changed over to the _U.S.S. Flagg_ Combat Information Center. “Attention, Big Mama, this is Helmsman Six. Be advised, your package is not coming out. Turn around and get clear of the enemy coastal defenses right away!”

 

Meanwhile, aboard the _U.S.S. Flagg_ :

 

The Combat Information Center was being manned at its full capacity twenty-four hours a day while the _Flagg_ battle group was maneuvering for the al-Basra Channel. One of the screening missile frigates involved in escorting the carrier, the _U.S.S. Reuben James_ , was already approaching the channel’s northern mouth and had her two SH-60B LAMPS III Seahawks out ahead of the group providing reconnaissance for the approach.

 

“Roger that, Helmsman Six,” the CIC duty officer replied. “Turn back orders understood. We’ll stay close offshore to provide rescue support in any way we can. Big Mama is out.”

 

The CIC watch officer, a lieutenant commander with years of combat carrier experience, turned to his navigation chiefs and radio operators. “Order the _Reuben James_ to come about immediately. Halt all other ships and turn west for deep water. Raise the threat level on all vessels to Red. Keep alert for sea-skimming missiles. The enemy might try to launch a few Silkworms or C-802’s at us while our asses are turned their way. Get to it!”

 

_U.S.S. Reuben James FFG-57_

_Oliver Hazard Perry_ -Class Guided Missile Frigate

 

The frigate was mostly blacked out and under combat alert conditions as her sleek hull sliced at the calm waters outside the al-Basra Channel. The _Reuben James_ was only making about five knots and actively throwing out all of the ECM noise it could to confuse Cobra coastal radar sets that were scanning the channel for incoming vessels.

 

Deeper inland, at the port city and Iraqi fleet base of Umm Qasr, a Cobra Moray hydrofoil had returned from a patrol of the inshore waterway leading to the channel and reported the _Reuben James’_ Seahawks conducting an aerial sweep. Not wanting to take any chances, a crew of Techno-Vipers manning an ECCM station in the city started their equipment and tracked the radar jamming to a rough area of the channel.

 

“The Americans are coming inland with something large, possibly even a carrier group and an amphibious landing squadron,” the Cobra listening post’s commanding officer at Umm Qasr reported to Destro in Baghdad. “We need orders. What do you want us to do?”

 

In Baghdad, Destro fumed about the telephone call that woke him from a quite restful night of sleep and lovemaking with the Baroness. “Confirm the presence of an American fleet movement and then use the damn Chinese missiles your batteries have down there! Your command’s orders were to act independently to secure the al-Basra Channel from American patrols so that our freighters and submarines could continue to move our forces ashore! So do your job before I go find someone who can!”

 

The Cobra colonel in charge of Umm Qasr didn’t need to hear the words Destro had said. The tone alone was enough to spark him into action. “Alert the C-802 battery by the southern shipyard!” he ordered. “Fire on the American ships in the Channel now!”

 

Elsewhere in Umm Qasr, the alert crew of the Chinese C-802 anti-ship missile battery had been hard at work conducting day and night security drills. When the launch order came, the men and women of the battery wasted no time in responding. Large, Russian-made KrAZ eight wheeled trucks, originally designed to carry FROG and SCUD missiles, rolled into their launch positions, raising the dual box launchers of the battery’s Chinese-manufactured missiles. With a short command from the battery command post, two of the Yingji-82 (Eagle Strike) missiles leapt into the sky and streaked south towards the Persian Gulf.

 

“Seahawk One to _Reuben James_!” shouted the pilot of one of the frigate’s SH-60B helicopters. “I have a radar launch detection from the vicinity of Umm Qasr. Suggest possibility of one or two Chinese anti ship missiles! It’s getting really hot around here!”

 

The second Seahawk’s pilot was also very excited when he broke into the radio chatter with the _Reuben James_. “Seahawk Two to _Reuben James_! I am west of the channel and being engaged by numerous twin-rotor attack helicopters! I’m dropping altitude and running for the Kuwait City ADIZ! There are several enemy choppers on my ass!”

 

Commander Harry “Mac” MacPherson, commanding the _Reuben James_ , listened to the squawk box over his chair on the frigate’s bridge, as the helicopters called in their spot reports. He calmly turned to his officer of the deck and said, “OOD, sound general quarters and man all weapons stations for action. Send a flash signal to the Air Force and get some help for Seahawk Two. Also, get me a flight profile on the incoming bogeys.”

 

After shouting out the skipper’s orders, the OOD reached for one of the bridge’s sound powered phones and alarm klaxons sounded throughout the ship, as sailors scrambled for their battle stations. “General quarters! This is not a drill! All hands, man your battle stations!”

 

The OOD returned to the skipper moments later with a notepad and some hand scrawled information. “Captain, Combat reports the flight profile is similar to our Harpoon sea-skimming anti ship missile. Intelligence data on Iraq would classify the bogeys as Chinese C-802 “Eagle Strike” missiles, which are in their known inventory. They have a range of one hundred twenty kilometers with air breathing jet engines.”

 

The OOD pulled out a navigation chart of the al-Basra Channel that depicted the _Reuben James’_ position in relation to the Seahawks scouting ahead. “Seahawk One reported its last position here, south of the port itself. We’re well within the operational range of the missiles, and approximate time to hit us is ten minutes.”

 

“We haven’t the room to come about in this tight of an area,” MacPherson said dryly. “Have the engine room make turns for all astern, flank speed. Back us away towards the Gulf as quick as you can, and make sure the CIWS turrets are ready to engage at maximum range.”

 

The OOD snapped to and turned to issue additional commands to the bridge crewmen. “Aye, aye, captain.”

 

***

 

The _Flagg_ CIC became a hotbed of activity within moments of news coming in about the Eagle Strike missile launch. Intelligence technicians and electronic warfare specialists worked feverishly at computers and radar displays to locate the origin of the launch, so that a retaliatory strike could knock out the C-802 battery.

 

“I have the relative position of Seahawk One when it reported the missile launch and the pilot’s sight vector!”

 

“Computer tracking is up! Track on bogeys one and two are on the main board! Correlating reciprocal trajectory of the C-802 inbounds!”

 

“We have a satellite pass going over Umm Qasr now! Movement of large transport-erector type vehicles at the following grid coordinates...”

 

“I have a satellite-triangulated position on the launching battery!”

 

“Location confirmed by SIGINT intercept station and ECCM tracking!”

 

“Pipe down, people!” the CIC duty officer shouted over the chaotic din. “Bring me the data and get a lock on that firing battery’s exact coordinates. Alert the _U.S.S. Mitscher_ combat information center to get ready for a Tomahawk TLAM counter-attack! Let’s move it!”

 

***

 

_U.S.S. Mitscher, DDG-57_

_Arleigh Burke_ -Class AEGIS Destroyer

 

The sleek, raked bow of the guided missile destroyer _Mitscher_ plowed through the Persian Gulf waters just ahead of the _U.S.S. Flagg_ , turning to port to avoid the al-Basra Channel. Her large billboard-sized radar panels, attached to the ship’s ultra-sophisticated SPY-1D multi-mode radar system, scanned the skies electronically as the crewmen onboard relayed information about the incoming missiles to the crewmen operating the more conventional radar aboard the _Reuben James_.

 

The captain of the _Mitscher_ looked out over the calm waters knowing the danger his fellow skipper and the crew of the _Reuben James_ was in some fifteen miles northeast of his ship. “Sound General Quarters! Order all hands to rig the bow Mark Forty-one Vertical Launcher for a TLAM strike! Set the data link with _Flagg_ CIC and hot-upload the targeting coordinates to the missiles as soon as we have a firing solution! Queue up conventional Tomahawk TLAM with cluster munitions payload!”

 

The captain’s squawk box came alive with static and then a voice echoed through the large AEGIS destroyer’s bridge. “ _Mitscher_ , this is _Flagg_ CIC. Your target coordinates have been swapped on the data link. As per Keel-Haul, you are red and free! Fire on the captain’s discretion!”

 

The captain got to his feet and grabbed the 8-MC phone. “Combat, did you catch that? Warm up the birds and stand by for snap shot!” Turning from the sound powered phone, the captain got the attention of his officer of the deck. “OOD, call Deck Division and have them clear the bow for Mark Forty-one launch!”

 

Fifty or so feet below the _Mitscher’s_ captain and bridge crew, on the lightly pitching forward deck, sailors of the ship’s Deck and Weapons Divisions scattered to safe hiding places as four large steel hatches cranked open on hydraulic support rods. The hatch covers of the Mark 41 VLS weren’t open long before tall plumes of smoke burst from the open launch cells. Four orange and white Tomahawk missiles shot straight up into the sky, tracing a ballistic arc in the early morning sky as they turned for Umm Qasr.

 

***

 

_U.S.S. Reuben James, FFG-57_

Steaming out of the al-Basra Channel

 

“Bogeys have entered our three-inch gun envelope!” reported the Officer of the Deck to Captain MacPherson. “Bravo station is firing in rapid-fire mode!”

 

The entire superstructure of the sleek frigate vibrated as the quick-firing OTO-Melara 76mm gun began hurling air-bursting shells into the sky between the _Reuben James_ and the enemy C-802 missiles. With very little assistance from the weapons operators, an onboard computer tied into the ship’s air defense radar trained the frigate’s largest gun in a pattern meant to form a wall of flying steel fragments, hopefully enough to stop the missiles or knock them out of the air before they could reach their terminal flight phase.

 

As the larger gun fired, the Mark 15 Model 2 Close-in Weapons System also tracked in the direction of the enemy missiles. As soon as its own radar spotted the blips of the missiles entering firing range, the six-barreled cannon churned out close to a thousand rounds a minute. Yawing and dipping to a pre-programmed firing pattern, the CIWS also tried to knock out the C-802’s as the pair of deadly weapons lost altitude and locked onto the frigate, cruising a mere twenty feet above the water.

 

“Combat to bridge! The missiles dropped below our radar!” a frantic radar operator called from _Reuben James’_ CIC.

 

The captain of the frigate didn’t need to think. His OOD was already pulling a radio talker to his side to relay orders to the ship’s spaces. The Captain barked from his chair, “OOD! Sound collision! Have the hands dog all watertight hatches and clear the decks! Alert Deck Division and the DAMCON teams to make for the emergency equipment lockers! Tell the engine rooms to crank out maximum turns on both shafts! Get us the hell out of here!”

 

***

 

_U.S.S. Mitscher_

Combat Information Center

 

“Shit!” one of the radar controllers swore accidentally. “The inbound bogeys have dropped to two-zero feet! They’re off _Reuben James’_ scopes! Three minutes to impact!”

 

“Pass the word on the data link!” the CIC officer shouted across the small room. “Give me time on target for the TLAM strike!”

 

A missile crewman replied from the Weapons station. “Sir, time on target coordinates is six minutes! All four TLAM’s are running hot straight and normal!”

 

***

 

Seahawk Two, SH-60B LAMPS III

Approaching the Kuwait Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ)

 

“Seahawk Two to all stations, any stations! I am being pursued by hostile helos and running south for Kuwait City! Request fast movers for assistance! I count seven... no, nine, Cobra FANG II attack helicopters!”

 

Streams of bright red and orange tracers shot past the SH-60B as the pilots dove the helicopter to the deck, swirling up desert sand as they ran south to escape. The aviation systems operator and the crew chief in the back cabin of the ASW helicopter fired back as best as they could with the Seahawk’s M-214A1 “Six-Pack” machine gun mount. The small, 5.56mm rotary-barrel gun made a long burping sound every time the crew chief spotted a FANG II close enough to squeeze off some shots at.

 

In the cockpit, alarms and flashing red warning lights filled the space where the flight crew struggled to keep their aircraft aloft. The copilot scanned his control panels while the pilot kept the Seahawk maneuvering and screamed into his boom microphone for assistance.

 

“Pilot, I have a red line on the engine!” the copilot reported, sniffing for any signs of smoke or fire in the cockpit. “Engine rpm is close to red line, and there’s horsepower loss on the main shaft!” The young ensign glanced across his panels and noticed several gauges dropping quickly. “Shit! We have a hydraulics loss in the tail rotor! How’s she handling?”

 

The pilot kicked hard at the rudder pedals under his feet to feel if the Seahawk could still fly. “Dammit! She’s gone sluggish! I’ve lost yaw control! Let’s look for a soft spot and try to auto-rotate her down!”

 

“Jesus, save us! They’re firing again!” shouted the aviation systems operator from the rear cabin as tracers tore through the helicopter’s skin and ripped the crew chief to shreds. The frightened systems operator dove for the machine gun over the writhing bloody body of the crew chief, to try to get a few more shots in on the FANG copters.

 

As the copilot flipped switches and reached for a small fire extinguisher, the pilot tuned his radios to the battle group frequency and Guard, the international emergency channel, simultaneously broadcasting on both. “Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is U.S. Navy Seahawk Two, five miles north of Kuwait ADIZ. We are going down. Repeat, we are going down hard.”

 

The pilot’s mayday call was the last anyone heard from Seahawk Two. It went down in a ball of flames above the rolling Iraqi desert, as the flight of pursuing Cobra FANG II choppers performed a series of victory rolls above the wreckage.

 

***

 

_U.S.S. Reuben James_

Combat Information Center

 

“Damn! We lost a Seahawk! Seahawk Two is down, feet dry, five miles north of Kuwait ADIZ!”

 

“Any blips on the missiles?”

 

“Nada, sir! The guns have lost their cues and we’re sittin’ on a big red bull’s eye!”

 

“Weapons, switch the CIWS to manual and train it along the vector we’re getting from the _Mitscher_ data link! Commence firing! Fire at will!”

 

The frigate vibrated again from stem to stern as the CIWS opened up. The final hail of 20mm rounds caught the first C-802 and blasted it out of the sky about a thousand yards from the ship. The second C-802 slammed into the superstructure just behind and below the bridge on the 01 deck, ripping completely through the ship before the engine fizzled out and dropped the spent weapon’s airframe into the water.

 

On the bridge, the whole ship rocked violently as the C-802 struck the superstructure. The OOD fell into the helmsman’s console and a trickle of blood started to form on his forehead.

 

Commander MacPherson got to his feet and ran to aid his OOD, while motioning for the radio talker to come closer. “Get DAMCON moving! Assess the damage and have engines, weapons and maneuvering call up a full damage report! Send for a corpsman!”

 

***

 

_U.S.S. Flagg_

Command Bridge

 

“God dammit!” Keel-Haul swore as the reports of the Seahawk crash and the missile hit on the _Reuben James_ were relayed to his place high atop the carrier. “Scramble Sky Strikers! Escort Seahawk One back to the carrier and have the plane guard helicopter standing by if the bird has to ditch! Make a ready flight deck for emergency recovery! Order the battle group to steam in a new heading, one-eight-zero! Dispatch the frigate _Robert Bradley (FFG-49)_ to cover the _Reuben James_!”

 

***

 

Cobra/Iraqi Navy C-802 missile battery

South of Umm Qasr

 

The Cobra Vipers and Iraqi missileers who operated the C-802 battery were still on security measures, despite reports from Umm Qasr Command that their weapons had in fact hit an American warship in the al-Basra Channel.

 

The whine of small turbojets had drawn the attention of only a handful of sentries at the sprawling missile battery site, and there was no time to raise the alarm when four brightly-colored shapes appeared over the unit at very low altitude, showering the battery’s KrAZ launch vehicles, communications and radar shacks with hundreds of tiny bomblets which exploded on contact. In less than two minutes, the C-802 battery was decimated and unable to shoot any more anti ship missiles at the Flagg battle group.

 

***

 

A kilometer southwest of Camp Al-Shu’a

In the open desert

0500 hours, local time

 

The Joes had brought their vehicles to a halt and placed them under cover just before daybreak at the Cobra garrison. From a distance of over a thousand meters, the camp appeared quiet, and its security was limited to patrols along the perimeter. Despite not having much in the way of physical early warning, Camp Al-Shu’a had some of the tightest security that Cobra could muster.

 

“Okay, Joes!” Crypto called out softly. “Snap to! Let’s get the vehicles covered over and stake down the camouflage material! Set a security perimeter and get the surveillance equipment rigged for action! When the perimeter is set, chow down in your fighting holes! Let’s move it!”

 

Some of the Joes spread out with entrenching tools to scrape out foxholes in the shifting sand, while Walkabout and Sneak Peek unrolled sand-colored camouflage material over the cluster of vehicles and staked the material down with long wooden sticks. The camouflage material provided shelter and shade for the Joes’ inner perimeter, as well as protection from sand storms and being spotted from the air. The fact that the squad had chosen a valley deep inside a natural wadi gave the Joes a very concealable and defensible position from which they could watch the Cobra garrison.

 

Scarlett brought around a case of MRE meal packs from the squad’s cargo trailer and the Joes guarding the perimeter selected their favorites before tearing into them and starting to eat. Crypto grabbed a breakfast meal pack and stuffed it into one of his utility pouches, taking another for Sneak Peek. He walked over to the forward observer, who had just finished unpacking his high-powered visual surveillance periscope.

 

“Shall we take a climb up to the edge of the wadi, Sneak Peek?” Crypto asked.

 

“Why not?” Sneak Peek replied. “I’m good to go here, if you brought breakfast and a spare canteen of water for the instant coffee.”

 

Crypto patted his utility pouch and nodded. “I’ve got the MRE packs and canteens, no waiting. Let’s have a look at the camp, shall we?” Sneak Peek nodded, and the pair of Joes locked and loaded their assault rifles.

 

The men belly crawled up the gradual slope of the wadi until Sneak Peek was satisfied he could erect his periscope. He reached into a pocket of his combat webbing and pulled out a small square of Hessian, a coarse, burlap-like material. He wrapped the top of the periscope with the Hessian and tied it off with a length of twine. The Hessian was meant to break up the shiny reflection of the periscope and its large viewing lens from enemy guards in the towers or any passing patrols. Raising the lens of the periscope over the top of the wadi edge, Crypto and Sneak Peek scraped at the send with their hands until a stable hole had been dug to plant the bottom of the periscope in and stabilize the device.

 

Once the periscope was planted, Sneak Peek uncovered the eyepiece and turned a dial on the unit to help focus the main lens, and then he pointed it at the Cobra camp, digging his elbows and knees into the sand to keep from shifting out of his place.

 

Crypto rolled onto his back and wiggled his butt into the sand to keep from sliding down the slope they had just climbed. He withdrew a small metal canteen cup and tore open one of the MRE packs he had brought. Finding the instant coffee, he emptied the small packet into the canteen cup and poured a dose of tepid purified water from the small G.I. canteen he brought for Sneak Peek. Using a thin wooden stirring stick to mix the finely ground coffee powder with the water, the best he could manage was a brown-colored mixture that looked like toxic sludge.

 

“Here you go, Sneak Peek,” Crypto said, reaching the canteen cup over to the observer and then slipping the canteen with the remaining water into Sneak Peek’s canteen pouch on his LBE gear. “Sorry that the water wasn’t boiled up first.”

 

Sneak Peek accepted the somewhat bitter Army instant coffee and slugged it down in one gulp. He shivered for a second as he felt the strong dose of caffeine and the gritty sensation of the un-dissolved powder going down his throat. “Don’t sweat it, El-Tee. The shit goes down better when you chug it and don’t think about the taste anyway.”

 

“Okay,” Crypto replied, taking a swig from his own canteen and tucking the rest of Sneak Peek’s MRE pack under his elbow so it wouldn’t slide away. “I’ll check on you in a while. Lay your Mark One eyeball on that camp and tell me what you see when I get back.” Crypto kicked out his legs and raised his butt off the sand, starting to slide back down into the wadi. He let gravity do the work, until his boots hit more solid ground at the bottom.

 

When Crypto got back to the campsite, Scarlett approached him from the shade of the camouflage enclosure. She brushed a wisp of her long red hair out of her eyes and led Crypto under the shade to let him know what was going on.

 

“Walkabout has pickets out and dug in, El-Tee,” Scarlett reported first. “And everyone else is either catching a little shut-eye in the vehicles before they pull a relief post, or setting up the ELINT gear Waveform brought.”

 

“Very well,” Crypto replied. “Do you have any news on the TDC from Headquarters?”

 

“Not a peep yet, other than an acknowledgement that we’re in position and our radio call sign,” the intelligence specialist said. “Our squad has been coded Crazy Horse for non-secured transmissions.”

 

Crypto pulled out his personal TDC unit and dialed in onto the headquarters frequency. “I’ll try them. Check on Sneak Peek up at the top of the wadi in about an hour for me, okay?”

 

“Will do, El-Tee,” Scarlett said, clapping Crypto on the shoulder. She smiled and winked in his direction. “You’re doing fine, Crypto. Keep it up.”

 

***

 

G.I. Joe Communications-Operations Center

King Khalid Military City

 

A radio channel at one of the TDC base stations in the Joes’ communications room came to life and a signals operator from the duty team leaned over to check the identity readout of the TDC’s owner who was calling in.

 

“Crazy Horse Six Actual to Helmsman Six, how do you copy?” Crypto said over the communications network.

 

The duty signals operator opened the line at his end and motioned for Major Storm, the supervising operations officer for the day, to come and listen in. “This is Helmsman Six, go with your message, Crazy Horse Six Actual.”

 

“Crazy Horse requests additional operational instructions, Helmsman Six.” Crypto said.

 

Major Storm waved the signals operator aside and keyed the base station’s microphone himself. “Crazy Horse Six Actual, this is Helmsman Six. Your current instructions are to complete mission objectives as originally assigned. Your operational profile is complete with no additions. As per Six Actual, you are to go to complete radio silence with Helmsman. I repeat, complete radio silence with Helmsman. Break radio silence only for emergency extraction requests or to report mission successful. Over and out.” Major Storm killed the connection before Crypto could even send a message in protest.

 

***

 

“Fucking typical,” Crypto swore, angrily shoving the TDC into a convenient LBE pouch and kicking at a swirl of sand. “We’re on our own. Dammit.”

 

“Is everything okay, Leftenant?” Walkabout asked, concerned when he saw Crypto getting angered.

 

“We’re to observe complete radio silence, Mick,” Crypto said, accidentally using Walkabout’s real first name. Truly, it was Michael, but everyone who knew Walkabout well called him Mick. “That means we’re totally on our own from here. Other than TDC status reports every twelve hours, or emergencies, we’re getting no talk from headquarters. I almost think we might be hanging out to dry!”

 

“Don’t you worry there, Leftenant,” Walkabout replied, sitting down on the sand and leaning against one of the AWE Striker’s rubber tires. “What was it the American Marines say? Right; you improvise, adapt, and overcome! I for one am damn sure this mission wasn’t meant to be a one way trip for us Joes. We just need a bit of creative ball-slapping to get the job done. You’ve got some good blokes ‘ere, mate, and one helluva Sheila too.”

 

“You’re right as rain, Colour Sergeant,” Crypto said. “Let’s take a bit of time to think this out, and I promise you a good plan of action.”

 

“You sure better get one, Leftenant,” Walkabout said with a not-so-serious smile on his face. “Because there ain’t no one on this bloody earth who’s gonna keep ol’ Mick Bradenton from his beer bong and drinking blokes back at Joe Headquarters!”

 

***

 

G.I. Joe Compound – Mess Hall

King Khalid Military City

0530 hours, local time

 

“Good morning, Flint,” Duke said, setting his metal food tray down on one of the mess hall tables with a clatter and nearly spilling his portion of Cookie’s watery scrambled eggs and foul-looking creamed chipped beef on toast on the Warrant Officer, who appeared to be in another world.

 

“What’s so good about it, Duke?” Flint mused, toying with his tray lazily and drawing his utensils slowly over the untouched mounds of food. His eyes shifted momentarily to watching the steam rise off his full cup of coffee when Duke gazed at him with his steely blue eyes.

 

“Alison’s on your mind, huh?” Duke asked, mentioning Lady Jaye by her real first name. He pawed at his food hungrily, gobbling it down and drawing a neutral look from Flint. When he came up for air, he continued in a sloppy tone while still chewing the last morsels in his mouth. “I hear you, man. Red’s gone off on a mission too. She took off late last night.”

 

“But you don’t know the half of it,” Flint replied. “We didn’t part on the greatest of terms.”

 

Duke had known both Flint and Lady Jaye long enough to know – or at least surmise – what had gone on between the two to strain their relationship yet again. “You’re going to have to curb that jealousy streak, Dashiell. You know full well how Alison hates feeling distrusted by her own spouse.”

 

“It wasn’t my jealousy that did it this time,” Flint murmured.

 

“Don’t tell me,” Duke said, slapping an open hand on his forehead. “She caught you making points with your damn lop-sided grin and lost puppy dog expressions. Which of the female recruits were you hitting on this time?”

 

“I think you have it all wrong, Duke,” Flint said slowly, gulping down a healthy dose of his coffee. “SHE flirted with me. Alison wouldn’t even let me explain or give me a chance to let the young lady down easy.”

 

“You can turn off the bullshit now, Faireborn,” Duke said with a laugh. “My ears can’t handle you shoveling anything that strong this early in the morning. Let HER down easy? You? That’s one likely story, chum. We’ve served together long enough for me to know how you absorb female attention like a playboy. You’d never give up on a sure thing. You dogged one of the rawhides and you know it. Consider yourself lucky that someone didn’t have you busted for it.”

 

“Always the pragmatist, eh Duke?” Flint remarked with a look of consternation. “Are you going to smooth things out with Lady Jaye for me too?” The Warrant Officer turned his head and stared at Duke with his eyes flashing in annoyance.

 

“Hardly,” Duke replied. “I’m simply going to ensure you two and your personal issues don’t affect how you perform your duties. You know, ‘greater good’ and all that.”

 

Flint made an obscene one-fingered gesture in Duke’s direction. “Bite me, you fucking jerk. Come on and get the lead out of your ass. We have our morning briefing to get to.” Kicking his chair back with a clatter, Flint gathered up his breakfast scraps and walked away fuming.

 

***

 

0545 hours, local time

 

“Take your seats, gentlemen,” General Tomahawk said to his assembled command staff, as they filed into the command center’s conference room for their morning briefings. “We’re going to skip our routine first briefing activities, the usual intelligence updates from CENTCOM and any old business this morning, because we have a problem.”

 

The typical “chow chatter” between the command personnel stopped immediately when Tomahawk announced the change in routine.

 

“Settle down, people,” Tomahawk continued. “Hatchet One, the covert mission to extract an American CIA agent and data collected by the CIA’s spy network concerning targets in Baghdad and the depth of Cobra involvement in the country may have been compromised during the ex-filtration part of the operation. The _U.S.S. Flagg_ and her battle group couldn’t get into position to cover the pickup unit’s escape, in their Killer Whale hovercraft. The _Flagg_ battle group was engaged by an anti-ship missile battery outside of Umm Qasr as they tried to send a frigate up the al-Basra Channel to cover and rendezvous with the Whale outside of al-Basra on the Tigris River. The frigate was damaged trying to evade the missiles and protect herself. The guided missile destroyer _U.S.S. Mitscher_ launched a successful counter-strike, using Tomahawk TLAM missiles to decapitate the missile battery. The big problem is the Whale is still a hundred miles inside of Indian Country, stuck in place and damaged by a Cobra patrol late in the night while the crew was scrounging for more fuel.”

 

General Tomahawk paused to let the information sink in while he took a sip from a glass of cold water before continuing. “Cobra is also constructing some sort of facility outside of Baghdad, which our resident intelligence analyst suspects is capable of deploying weapons of mass destruction. Last night, I approved the insertion of Crypto, in charge of a small reconnaissance and security team, to gather data on the place before we make a decision on issuing strike orders to take it out.”

 

Murmurs filled the small conference room before Tomahawk motioned for the room to be silent. “This is what we need ASAP. Flint, I want you to get over to Hafr-al-Batin Air Base. You take stock of our rotary-wing assets and have all of our available pilots ready to fly at a moment’s notice for a recovery mission when we can get a good fix on the Whale. We have to plan for a rescue under fire to bring Hatchet One out of danger for sure. Crazy Horse, the team scouting the Cobra construction site at al-Shu’a, will also be likely to require a quick extraction when they go in on their penetration tonight. They’re not outfitted for a long duration mission behind the lines.”

 

“Duke,” Tomahawk added. “I want you to hand pick a quick reaction force team that can mount up under Flint’s command at the drop of a hat. Sky Patrol is available, but I want a number of our ground-pounders available in case the air recovery unit has to take on both missions at once. For the rest of you, it’s business as usual, unless I otherwise direct. Keep training our units and teams for when we get our orders to join the big Allied push, whatever that will be. Duke and Flint, I want you to have the QRF members formed, briefed and outfitted for action by seventeen-hundred hours today. Are there any questions?”

 

The room stayed silent. Flint and Duke nodded their understanding. As General Tomahawk got to his feet, everyone in the room respectfully stood at attention. “You’re all dismissed. Good luck,” the general said, leaving the conference room to attend a video conference with Admiral Keel-Haul and Brigadier Generals Flagg and Sharpe aboard the _U.S.S. Flagg_.

 

Flint grinned as he turned to leave the room and chucked Duke roughly on the shoulder with his fist. “Well, old pal. You heard the man. We have action to prepare for.”

 

Right before the two leaders exited the command center to head for the motor pool, they noticed that Beach Head and Mainframe were talking excitedly to General Hawk and Sure Fire, the senior officer in charge of the team’s security. They had two people with them, a Marine in a set of worn battle dress utilities and a female naval officer wearing a shore patrol badge or something like it. Tomahawk nodded a few times before the trio of Navy and Marine personnel followed Beach Head out of the command center at a rapid trot.

 

***

 

Outside Camp Al-Shu’a

Southwest of Baghdad

0600 hours, local time

 

Atop the edge of the deep wadi that hid the Joe squad’s hidden campsite, Crypto crawled up the last few feet of the sandy slope to join up with Sneak Peek, who was still watching the activity around the Cobra garrison.

 

“Do you see anything, Sneak Peek?” Crypto asked the Joes’ long range surveillance expert, who squinted into the eyepiece of his portable, high-magnification periscope.

 

“Not a thing worthwhile, El-Tee,” Sneak Peek replied. “There’s still a ton of activity around the wide trench that is extending due south of the camp. It’s all civilian construction equipment and laborers though. The patrol pattern is unchanged and the towers are always manned with at least three guards apiece. I don’t think we’ll get any substantial information just watching them from here.”

 

“I understand, Sneak Peek,” Crypto replied, patting the observer on the shoulder. “I’ll check with the others and we’ll bring you in for a planning meeting real soon. Until then, make sure no one comes out and surprises us, okay?”

 

“Will do, boss,” Sneak Peek replied with a smile. As Crypto slid back down the slope, Sneak Peek shook some sand out of his M-16A3 rifle’s barrel and laid it within arm’s reach, just in case.

 

***

 

0730 hours, local time

 

The Joes huddled together under the camouflage cover that provided them shade and shelter from the rapidly warming desert sun. Some of the Joes reclined against the thick rubber tires of the vehicles and stretched out on the sand while others cradled weapons and looked warily out into the wadi for signs of enemy patrols.

 

Sneak Peek had gathered his gear and crawled back down into the gully where the impromptu meeting had been called, and he sat with a groan against the edge of the wadi. Hit & Run came around with an MRE pack for the exhausted recon trooper, and he accepted a refill of his canteen from the supply of water the squad brought in several twenty-gallon Jerry cans.

 

Crypto got to his feet and cleared his throat, getting the attention of the entire squad. He pulled out his tactical map of the area and an extra wooden tent stake, in order to brief the other Joes on his plan of attack.

 

Quickly drawing a sketch of Camp Al-Shu’a in the sand, based on Sneak Peek’s observations, Waveform’s signal intercepts, and the satellite imagery and other details he had memorized before leaving KKMC, Crypto laid out the rough shape of the camp, including the security measures. As the Joes settled down to pay attention to the officer, Crypto said, “Okay, people. Here we are. We need to get inside this camp and have a look around. This is how we’re going to do it...”

 

***

 

Hafr-al-Batin Air Base

Saudi Arabia

1200 hours, local time

 

Flint maneuvered his AWE Striker along the dusty road that led to the Joe Team’s aircraft operations room, to review the readiness of aircraft and flight crews for his quick reaction force mission. The aircraft operations room was situated near the back of the large primary hangar used to maintain and support the team’s combat jets and helicopters. With a squeal of his brakes, the Warrant Officer brought his AWE Striker to a stop near a back door built into the capacious hardened aircraft shelter.

 

Wild Bill walked out of the hangar’s back door just in time to notice Flint leaping to the ground from his vehicle’s driver’s seat. With a hospitable smile, Wild Bill tipped his Stetson cowboy hat to the officer and said, “Well, hey howdy there, leader-man! What brings you to our dusty corner of the world?”

 

Flint took off his beret and shook some sand out of it before setting it back into place atop his cleanly cut hair. “I’m in charge of a quick reaction force, with orders to plan an extraction for the Joes on the Crazy Horse mission, and to pull Cutter’s Whale and the Hatchet One team out of harm’s way.”

 

“Well, Flint, if you want choppers, we’ve got ‘em, sure ‘nuff,” Wild Bill replied. “I have four heavy CH-53C Super Stallions, which can load up to two AWE Strikers, plus a couple dozen airborne troops. There are also a couple Tomahawks and Chinooks of the unarmed transport variety, and a pair of really slick MH-60K DAP Blackhawk transport-gunships. Of the six attack helicopters we received from the _U.S.S. Flagg_ , the Sky Storm and prototype RAH-66 Comanche are playing the hangar queens, and our pair of AH-74 Desert Apaches have been red-lined for rotor blades and mechanical parts. That leaves us with just two Dragonflies for any sort of armed escort.”

 

Flint studied the aircraft maintenance and status reports that Wild Bill handed over before speaking again. “How about the flight crews, Wild Bill? Who do we have that’s cleared to fly?”

 

“Lift-Ticket, Windmill, Updraft and I are all at one hundred percent, and ready to fly at a moment’s notice, leader-man,” Wild Bill replied. “Most of the Green Shirt pilots are flying the milk runs and cargo flights to Dhahran or the _U.S.S. Flagg_. We have enough crew chiefs and aerial gunners to man nine birds. We also just got some fresh pilots that were approved for the team, but they haven’t taken their check rides on our Tomahawks and Dragonflies yet.”

 

Flint rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “They’re all veteran pilots and have combat experience, right, Bill?” Wild Bill nodded in reply. “We won’t have time for check rides. The QRF may have to fly as soon as tonight. You can have the greenies with less experience fly the regular Army stuff, and I’ll lead the force from a Dragonfly. How many new whirlybird pilots are there?”

 

“We have Dustoff and Downwash, Rotorhead and... and Glenda, Flint.” Wild Bill rattled off the new pilots’ code names, pausing at the thought of Glenda, a female aerobatic chopper pilot, being sent into a hot battlefield on her first mission with the Joes.

 

“Nine pilots will do, Bill,” Flint said. “How’s Sky Patrol fixed up? We’ll need some ground-pounders out there, even though Duke is stripping a section from the duty rosters to help the QRF out.”

 

Wild Bill formed a thoughtful look on his face and then replied. “The Sky Patrol platoon took some minor injuries on the CSAR mission to retrieve the B-52H crew from Indian Country. But Altitude assures me they’re ready if we need them. In fact, a civilian Sky Crane is flying in from Riyadh with some pre-fabricated materials for us to build a bigger alert shack across the service road from the hangar, to house duty pilots and a rotating Sky Patrol assault team.”

 

Wild Bill looked to the sky as he and Flint heard the drumbeat sounds of a slowly-approaching heavy helicopter. “I have to tell you, Flint, the ships we have available can pick up troops. The MH-60K gunships can even sling load a Hummer for up to a hundred-fifty miles or so easily. The CH-53C’s can carry light vehicles and troops to Baghdad and back in a pinch. But the Whale is way too heavy for any one of our whirlybirds. I don’t even think rigging her up for a tandem lift would work, ‘specially under combat conditions.”

 

As the two chopper pilots spoke together, a number of green shirts ran past and the approaching helicopter sounds grew louder, as if a giant chopper was about to buzz the Joes’ hardened aircraft shelter. Flint and Wild Bill followed the green shirts to discover a large Sikorsky CH-54A Sky Crane, in Saudi Arabian civil aviation markings, hovering over a spot that had been cleared for the new alert shack expansion. The Sky Crane settled slowly, lowering a corrugated aluminum Quonset hut to the ground under the guidance of ground crewmen and a pair of Air Force civil engineers.

 

Flint grabbed Wild Bill’s shoulder and asked, “Where do you think we can get something powerful enough to sling-load the Whale and carry her for the distance? Why not a bird like that one?”

 

“The only military chopper in the American inventory capable of a single-point pickup of the Whale is a Marine Corps CH-53E Advanced Super Stallion Block III, or one of the tilt-rotor MV-22A Osprey aircraft. The only examples of both types that I know of are still based in CONUS, since the MV-22A is undergoing flight test and evaluation at NAS Patuxent River, and the CH-53E Block III conversions are just starting to roll off the assembly lines at Boeing Helicopters...” Wild Bill watched the Sky Crane for a moment before his eyes lit up with an idea.

 

“Flint,” Wild Bill asked with a smile. “Do you reckon that we could convince General Tomahawk to arrange for renting us that big spindly CH-54A, maybe?”

 

Flint smiled back at Wild Bill and replied, “I like your thinking, Bill. Let’s go and make a phone call.”

 

***

 

Cruising on the Tigris River

Ninety-five miles from al-Basra

1700 hours, local time

 

“Thank God the dope cured and set just right,” Cutter remarked, as Clutch gave him a thumbs-up in the pilothouse after he had checked the inside of the damaged rubber air cushion skirt for leaks. “We should be reaching the Iraqi defensive perimeter at al-Basra in three and a half hours at cruising speed.”

 

“We’ve really been lucky,” Falcon replied, adjusting his green beret and munching on a high-energy chow bar. “The Cobra patrols never came back to find those tankers and Stuns we waxed, and we’ve only had to break off the river once since fueling to avoid a hydrofoil cruising the river.”

 

“Don’t get your hopes up, Falcon,” Cutter said carefully as he gripped the wheel and held the Whale on his intended course. “Ninety-five miles is a long way to go. And when we reach the port of al-Basra, we’ll have larger commercial maritime traffic to avoid, not to mention Cobra armed freighters, submarines, more hydrofoils, and any ground-based shore defenses they might decide to throw at us.”

 

“You’re a real spreader of the joy there, Cutter,” Falcon observed, smiling at Lady Jaye as she and Agent Guilford crammed themselves into the pilothouse from below decks to get a breath of the moist river air. “Don’t be telling us any scary bedtime stories, okay?”

 

“I’m a realist,” Cutter remarked. “I don’t think any mission is over until it’s over.”

 

***

 

Camp al-Shu’a

Just outside the perimeter fence

2000 hours, local time

 

Spotlights played slowly along the perimeter fence of the camp while the tower guards kept a watchful eye out for intruders. The triple-depth chain link fencing ran completely around three sides of the camp and was topped with barbed concertina wire. For the southern facing side, the fence only extended to the long trench that was being built, where a gap that spanned the trench was protected by a foursome of night sentries.

 

Crypto led his half of the Joe squad out from behind the rolling sand dunes to the south of the camp and the group belly crawled in pairs up to the edge of the trench farthest from the camp. Crypto and Scarlett checked the bottom of the trench for any surprises before lithely dropping into the man-made depression.

 

Since the last satellite pass prior to the mission’s departure, the trench had been lengthened by the civilian entrenching equipment and earthmovers. Also, a number of concrete and steel vertical support trusses had been erected, each with a slightly curved top beam. The edges of the trench and the trusses cast enough of a shadow on the bottom of the trench that the Joes could approach the camp undetected right up until they had to work over the night sentries, despite the powerful lighting in the towers.

 

Crypto and Scarlett aimed their weapons in a northern direction while they crouched behind the furthest truss support. After about five minutes’ time, Waveform and Sergeant Hacker slid over the edge of the trench and hit the soft ground in the bottom. As they leveled their weapons to cover the direction of the camp, Chuckles and Sneak Peek moved out from the cover of the small sand dunes and into the trench.

 

Without a word, Crypto raised his hand to get the whole team’s attention. He pointed two fingers at his eyes and nodded to Sneak Peek, wagging his hand north. Sneak Peek nodded in reply, moving in a crouching walk up to the first truss and then sprinting forward, diving to the floor of the trench as he reached the second truss support. The scout scanned about the area to see if anyone was there to discover the team, and when he was satisfied that the coast was clear, he made a thumbs-up sign in Crypto’s direction and then waved at the ground with his palm facing down.

 

“Let’s go, Scarlett,” Crypto whispered. “Keep low, all of you.” Bent at the waist and holding his MP-5 SD3 loosely in his hands, the officer darted out from behind his cover and scrambled over the sandy ground to catch up to Sneak Peek.

 

After a five second interval, Scarlett followed suit. Within the next thirty seconds, the team had moved forward and was sending Sneak Peek out again to check the next support truss. The group finally reached the edge of the large central structure after three minutes of leapfrogging and pausing.

 

***

 

When the Joes reached the edge of the central structure, Crypto called Sneak Peek and Chuckles over and pointed up to the top of the trench. “Okay, boys, the game’s all on your shoulders. I need you to get topside and find the foreman’s shack. It should contain the blueprints and plans we need in order to find any sort of computer room. If there’s a computer in the shack, call for Sgt. Hacker in case the Super Gun plans are being kept there.”

 

Chuckles and Sneak Peek gave Crypto a thumbs-up and whispered, “You can count on us, El-Tee.”

 

Crypto, Scarlett, Waveform and Sgt. Hacker crouched in a semi-circle beneath a large ventilation duct cover while Sneak Peek silently tossed a grappling hook up to the edge of the trench. When the grappling hook bit into the soil and held fast, Chuckles climbed up the knotted rope first, having tucked his silenced Beretta 9mm into the back of his BDU belt. Sneak Peek ascended right behind Chuckles, keeping his rifle slung around his neck and ready to shoot.

 

Chuckles reached the end of the rope and raised his eyes just over the trench’s edge. He smiled when he saw that the guard detail watching the trench was inside a small wooden shack and not paying a whole lot of attention. He and Sneak Peek scrambled quietly up onto level ground and sprinted along the side of the main structure.

 

“What do we do about the guards?” Sneak Peek asked once the pair reached the northwestern corner of the concrete building.

 

“Leave ‘em behind,” Chuckles said. “If they spot us on the way back, we’ll take them out before they raise the alarm. It’s better to sneak past ‘em so they think nothing’s wrong.”

 

Sneak Peek glanced around the open area in the middle of the camp with a pair of image intensifier binoculars and pointed fifty feet to the west. “There’s the foreman’s shack,” he indicated to Chuckles.

 

“How did you know that so fast?” Chuckles asked.

 

“I saw a shingle that read ‘Foreman’s Office’ hanging from it, Brainiac,” Sneak Peek replied with a smile. “Let’s go find some steel and break in.”

 

The Joes covered the fifty feet to the small wooden office trailer that rested on cement blocks. The foreman’s trailer was too tiny to house any sort of computers, and it didn’t look like it had anything more than a modest electrical hookup to the camp’s electrical plant. A simple tumbler lock kept the door shut.

 

Chuckles tested the door and found he couldn’t jiggle the lock loose. A bright circle of light from the camp’s interior spotlight began moving across the open areas towards the foreman’s office, so the intelligence specialist wasted no more time. He raised his silenced pistol and fired three times into the lock, smashing it to pieces. He then jerked his head at Sneak Peek, who produced a steel pry bar that he picked up from a tool pile.

 

Sneak Peek ripped into the damaged door lock with the pry bar and the door came open with a groan. The Joes disappeared inside the office trailer seconds before the spotlight passed harmlessly outside.

 

Chuckles lit a small penlight and scanned the inside of the small trailer, eventually finding the blueprint table. He read over several of the structural engineering plans and other facilities design charts before locating the construction sheets for the underground structure. “Sneak Peek, there’s nothing here we can use concerning the Super Gun. It’s all building blueprints.”

 

“We should steal it anyway,” Sneak Peek suggested, glancing over Chuckles’ shoulder at the rolled paper drawings. “This information will help us plan how to bomb this place and take it out.”

 

“Hold on,” Chuckles said, picking up one of the design drawings for the underground part of the garrison. “There’s what we’re looking for. Sub-level zero-one, the computerized records facility. I think we’ve hit pay dirt, my friend. Here’s where our team is waiting. It’s a large ventilation duct that leads to a utility room inside. We can bypass the main entrance and get right to it. Let’s get this stuff back to Crypto and let him know we have to go inside the structure.”

 

Quickly rolling up the blueprints they could carry and stuffing them into a paper tube, the two Joes silently exited the office trailer and sprinted back to the trench, surprisingly not drawing any guards’ attention along the way.

 

***

 

Sub-level 01, Computerized Records Room

2025 hours, local time

 

Sergeant Hacker wiped a bead of sweat forming on his brow as he finished copying the contents of the Super Gun's engineering specifications to the data storage server’s optical backup drive. "I've almost got all the data onto the optical disk, El-Tee," he reported to Crypto, reaching for the removable drive bay to pull out the optical disk. Once the data disk was out of the mainframe, the data retrieval specialist packed it in a protective container and tapped Crypto on the shoulder.

 

"Okay. We've got what we came for," Crypto said. He waved to Scarlett and Chuckles who were watching the door, and Sneak Peek and Waveform, who were spiking the mainframe with explosive charges. "Set those charges and then let's get the hell out of here."

 

"There's thirty minutes on the timer," Waveform reported. "Let's bug out double quick, team. We've got to make the surface as fast as we can."

 

Crypto charged his MP-5 SD3 sub-machinegun and pointed for the door. "All of you get that disk out of here and haul ass. No matter what happens, get yourselves out to Walkabout's team and every one of you evacuate to safety. Sneak Peek, take point and lead the group out. I'll guard your rear and keep any security troops off your trail."

 

No sooner had the team begun moving down the long, main hallway to the exit stairwell, did a Cobra security team round a corner from another direction to see the doors to the computer room wrecked. Shouts echoed from the end of the corridor as the security troops raised the alarm.

 

"That's it; we've been made," Crypto said, turning to delay the enemy troops. "Get your mangy asses out of here!"

 

"No, Crypto," Scarlett called out, turning to stand with the lieutenant. "We all go home or nobody goes home! I'm staying with you!"

 

Crypto grabbed onto Scarlett's shoulders and tried to turn her towards their teammates. "There's no sense in wasting both our lives to get that data out! Get the hell out of here now! That's an order, Sergeant! Don't look back after me! Now, go!"

 

"Stay close behind us, El-Tee," Scarlett replied, throwing her arms around Crypto lightly. "We're not going to leave you behind!"

 

"If something happens to me, Red, there won't be anyone to leave behind, especially when the explosives go off," Crypto said, breaking Scarlett's grip and raising his weapon. "Now, move it!"

 

Scarlett wiped a tear from her eye as she ran to catch up to the others. Crypto simply turned his back to her and peeked around the corner at the first squad of approaching Cobra security troops.

 

***

 

2030 hours, local time

 

"Search all corridors and cross-passageways," Major Bludd ordered the guard squad commanders and their Vipers. "Whoever broke into the computer room couldn’t have gotten too far; the mainframe computer is still running from whatever they came to steal. I'll arrange for a hefty bonus to any Viper who brings an intruder back alive!"

 

The Vipers locked and cocked their AK-74 assault rifles and fanned out, cautiously moving along the corridor, pressed against the walls to cover each other and keep from getting ambushed.

 

"Well, it's now or never," Crypto thought, squaring himself off and planting his feet for balance. He sidestepped into the hallway where the closest Viper squad was moving and shouted, "YO, JOE! Eat hot lead, snake-bastards!" In less than a heartbeat, the lieutenant had the safety of his weapon off and the stock was nestled into his armpit, ready to shoot. His MP-5 SD3 barely made a puffing sound as the Navy officer opened up on the Vipers.

 

Crypto used aimed fire to conserve the couple magazines' worth of ammo he was carrying, and was able to make a few hits on the lead Vipers. His specially-loaded high explosive ammo punched through the Vipers' helmets and light body armor, tearing painfully through tissue and skin. A couple of Vipers fell back from their crouched combat stances as a result of the bullet impacts, pools of blood forming around their heads as they hit the ground, screaming in agony.

 

The Vipers responded quickly, their combat-honed reflexes kicking in as soon as Crypto opened fire. They fired a hail of 5.45mm ball ammo down the hall, the barrage just missing Crypto as he ducked and rolled out of the corridor junction.

 

"Come on, Vipers! There's only one of them!" Major Bludd shouted, rallying the survivors of the fire teams in the hallway and loading his own AK-74 rifle. "Bring that scumbag in alive!"

 

Crypto leaned back around the corner to fire again, but he had lost the element of surprise. The sub-machinegun in his hands rocked as he delivered accurate shots, with its characteristic suppressed puffing sound.

 

"I'm hit!" one of the Vipers screamed, blood pouring from an eye socket from where one of Crypto's shots smashed through his faceplate and imbedded itself in the soldier's head. The Viper fell backwards, his finger tightening on the trigger of his assault rifle. As he died on the corridor floor, he shot off his entire magazine into the air before his corpse went limp.

 

"Get some, Cobras!" Crypto yelled defiantly. "Get some!" He ducked back into his safe zone and retreated down the hallway towards where his teammates were making for the surface exit.

 

A hail of bullets crossed the corridor junction as Crypto ran for one of the door alcoves along the hall. Pressing his back against a steel door, he dropped the empty magazine from his weapon and fished out a replacement. Just as he slid the new clip into his MP-5, the Vipers charged around the corner.

 

***

 

“Do you hear that?” Scarlett asked Chuckles, who was a few feet ahead of her. “There’s weapons fire behind us.”

 

“Then Crypto’s tearing hell into those Vipers like he said he would,” Chuckles replied in a coarse whisper. “Let’s get out of here.”

 

“We shouldn’t leave him like this,” Scarlett urged. “He would go back for any of us.”

 

“Crypto is also in charge of this mission and he gave us orders,” Chuckles replied. “He decided that his life is better spent making sure we get out with the goods so that thousands more lives can be spared when we stop this weapon from being completed.”

 

Sneak Peek raised his hand to halt the group, before leaning into the doorway to the main stairwell that led up to the main level. He motioned for the Joes to cluster up around him. “Okay, team,” he said. “We’re going back out the way we came in. The Cobras will most likely be sealing the doors anyway when reports of the gunfire get to the security men upstairs. Stay alert and follow me.”

 

Four of the Joes slid into the doorway and silently climbed the stairwell, heading back to the main ventilation room that they entered. Scarlett hung back and when the others were past the stairwell door, she ran back in the direction of the weapons fire sounds.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the sublevel:

 

"Come on, let's get this son of a bitch!" shouted a Viper non-com, rounding the corner cautiously and diving into a prone position. The soft punch-punch-punch of Crypto's weapon came from further down the hall where the lieutenant had taken up his new position. The non-com brought his AK-74 up to his shoulder and sprayed a burst of 5.45mm down the hall in Crypto's direction. "Open fire! Fire at will! COBRA!"

 

More Cobras rounded the corner and filled the hall with weapons fire. Crypto backed further into the doorway, trying his best to limit his exposed profile. A number of bullets ricocheted off the concrete walls close to his position and the lieutenant reflexively shielded his eyes from the chipped materials flying about. Then everything seemed to go black for a brief moment...

 

***

 

"Dammit, Lieutenant, aimed fire wins battles! Don't waste your ammo with wild bursts!" The sharp, yet soothing female voice echoed in Crypto's ears like it was only the day before when he was crouching down over a worn patch of sod on a Navy SEAL firing range near Dam Neck, Virginia, qualifying on his MP-5 SD3 sub-machinegun. The voice belonged to a ghost from Crypto's past, someone intimately involved with his last mission to Baghdad, and intimately involved with him for a time to boot.

 

For a brief moment, her image filled Crypto's consciousness and memory. Her blonde, conservatively short-cropped hair always hugged her head and framed her thin face well. She was a Navy SEAL, and a well-decorated one at that. He could still see the glitter of her Chief Petty Officer's insignia on her collar, the chevrons pointing down to a pair of well-shaped and perky breasts under her regulation white t-shirt.

 

The voice echoed again in his ears, louder than the shouts of the Cobra Vipers taking up their positions at the end of the corridor. “Aim to kill with every shot – treat your weapon and your enemy like your life depended on each round. Your job isn’t to go home in a body bag – it’s to make the enemy sons of bitches go home in them!”

 

***

 

The instinctive act of his trigger finger pulling on the MP-5 and the punch-punch-punch sound of the weapon’s report brought Crypto out of his self-imposed reverie. His bursts stitched down the cement floor and grazed a Viper across his neck. The lethal bullet of the salvo went right through the soldier’s throat, cleanly penetrating both the windpipe and jugular vein.

 

As the soldier fell to the ground, blood sprayed in all directions and a macabre gurgle was all the Viper could manage as a cry for help while he choked... while he drowned on the volume of his own blood that had spurted out.

 

Although Crypto needed to delay the enemy squad from spreading out and hitting his teammates from behind, it was essential for the sailor to keep moving in order not to be pinned down himself by the Vipers. Groping around his web gear, he found a smoke micro-grenade and plucked the pin by hooking his thumb through the pin’s metal ring. With a gentle toss, the grenade rolled into the corridor towards the Vipers.

 

“Grenade!” shouted the Viper non-com as the small cylinder bounced across the cement floor, sparking and then pouring out a cloud of sticky, acrid black smoke. The Cobras held their ground, firing through the smoke in an attempt to catch Crypto as he changed positions in the corridor.

 

The smoke grenade petered itself out after a minute and the air began to clear as the high-powered ventilation system sucked the smoke into its ductwork. The Vipers soon realized that the intruder hadn’t moved at all. Two more cylinders rolled into the hallway from his position. Upon seeing them, the Viper non-com foolishly rose to his feet and waved his men on to charge. “It’s just more of that fucking smoke! Come on, men! Let’s go get him!”

 

Crypto pressed himself as far into the door niche as he could, to protect himself from the blasts of the two high explosive anti-personnel micro-grenades. A new cloud formed in the hallway after the ear-shattering explosion, that of cement debris and torn flesh from charred Viper corpses. Getting to his feet, Crypto darted in a zigzag pattern out into the corridor and ran for a new blocking position.

 

“Go get that fucking Joe, you cowards! Get him and shoot him if you have to!” Major Bludd shouted to his security men when the smoke cleared and he spotted the pile of scorched, dead bodies left in the grenades’ wake. He loaded a 30mm stun grenade into his BG-1 launcher and fired it down the hall at Crypto.

 

The hollow blooping sound caused Crypto to act on instinct, diving to the ground to avoid the flying grenade. As the stun grenade detonated, he felt a warm sensation on his back and a soft push as the concussion of the blast reached him.

 

***

 

The sun was warm on his face and bare torso as he jogged down an uninhabited stretch of white sandy beach near Ocean City, Maryland. He remembered being up with the sun in order to make the most of his last day of weekend leave before returning to Fort Meade for another few weeks of pre-mission training.

 

Entirely positive that he had been alone, it was a surprise to him when a pair of hands softly shoved him forward, making him stumble to his knees just as the crashing surf dumped a torrent of blue-green salt water on him.

 

His ears rang with raucous laughter, a sound he had never heard in such a way before, and his vision was filled by the tall shapely blonde he had come to know over so many weeks, standing above him in a skimpy two-piece bikini and a disarming smile.

 

“You really need to be alert at all times, Lieutenant,” the woman said, tossing her blonde hair aside and raising her lips to the air to laugh once more. “You can’t afford to be surprised like that.”

 

He found his own lips moving, reliving the reply he had made on that beach long ago. “I know you’ll always have my back, so why worry?” She had been standing over his prone body, as he lay in the surf. His hands reached out to her just like that summer’s morning...

 

...And he yanked off her bikini bottom. Shocked at first, the blonde covered herself up and then chased the lieutenant down the beach, shouting for him to give the piece of clothing back. With a deft maneuver, his hands caught onto her bikini top during the chase, and he relieved the woman of that, too. Her nude body was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, glistening from the water spray and bathed in the warm sunlight. Both man and woman laughed heartily before wrapping each other up in a long embrace and kissing for the very first time...

 

***

 

“Son of a... The flash-bang went long!” Major Bludd cursed, as Crypto opened fire again. The metallic clatter of another spent magazine punctuated an end to his highly accurate shooting, as five Vipers went down clutching gunshot wounds to their arms and chests.

 

Another pair of micro-grenades rolled down the hallway, and Vipers scattered for cover behind door alcoves or each other as the HE-AP cylinders detonated once more, only taking out three Vipers who were too slow in finding a safe haven.

 

Deciding that more decisive firepower was needed, Major Bludd motioned for a pair of SAW-Vipers to take the point. The well-armored soldiers hefted their heavy machine guns and sidestepped down the hall, ready to engulf Crypto’s position in a barrage of large-caliber rounds.

 

Despite the heavy body armor the SAW-Vipers sported, they brazenly chose not to wear their restrictive combat helmets, for more ease in seeing their surroundings. Crypto rolled out into the hallway and aimed high, streaming bursts of 9mm rounds in the machine gunners’ most vulnerable parts. In the space of a handful of heartbeats, the SAW-Vipers’ heads turned into a fine red mist.

 

***

 

His hands were bloody, and the sounds of a pitched gun battle surrounded him. As he checked himself with one probing finger, he realized that the blood wasn’t his. Screams from SEAL commandos caught in a deadly crossfire somewhere nearby filled his ears as he looked down.

 

The blonde woman was lying in his lap, her face stone-cold. The lips that had warmly kissed his on many occasions appeared lifeless. Her chest heaved as she used every last effort in her being to draw breath. The blood on his hands belonged to her – he had tried to apply a pressure dressing to a sucking chest wound that made every breath she took potentially her last. A second wound to the head had been wrapped in gauze and the blood around it was caking and turning a deep red-brown.

 

Her blue eyes seemed to stare into space at first, but as he talked to her, trying to keep her focused, the pools of blue locked onto his own eyes. She looked at him like she wanted so badly to comfort him, to let him know the botched assault wasn’t his fault – because it wasn’t.

 

Her hands trembled with the fear of knowing death was imminent, as she brought her dented dog tags up from her chest. Providence had been good to her that night, at least for a while, as a stray round had ricocheted off her dog tags rather than tearing into her flesh early on in the battle that claimed her.

 

He raised her head slightly and slipped the dog tag chain off her neck. Then he rested her head again in his lap. The only word he could hear in his head was the repeated sound of his own voice, shouting, “MEDIC!”

 

When her last moment was upon her, she raised her hand to his cheek and brushed her fingers lightly across it. She smiled knowing that she had done her duty for America, and that she was in the arms of the man she loved.

 

As the wounded and overwhelmed SEAL commandos backed away slowly, seeking cover and safety, he took one of her dog tags, the more battered one, and tucked it into a pocket. He tied the other tag to one of her boot laces for identification, and then hoisted her lifeless body up over his shoulder, running to retreat with the rest of the SEAL team.

 

***

 

2041 hours, local time

 

Crypto fired off the last burst of 9mm from his MP-5 SD3, and the hollow click of the empty bolt locking open seemed thunderous. Hoping that it was only a jam, he worked the bolt and looked down into the chamber for another bullet. There were none left. A quick search of his LBE pouches yielded nothing, except for one smoke micro-grenade and two spare clips for his Beretta sidearm.

 

“Quiet down, Vipers!” Major Bludd ordered, as the sounds of return fire from the hallway abated. “I think he’s out of ammo!” Using hand signals, the Cobra mercenary motioned for his men to rise onto their feet and slowly advance towards Crypto’s position. With a knifing motion of his hand, the Major wordlessly ordered his Vipers to fix bayonets, and menacingly long combat knives were drawn from leather sheaths and affixed to the ends of the soldiers’ AK-74 rifles.

 

“We know your weapon’s run dry,” Major Bludd shouted to Crypto. “Spare your own life and come out peacefully. I promise no harm will come to you!”

 

“Fat chance of that, dickhead,” Crypto snarled in response, thumbing the safety off his Beretta and tucking it into the front of his LBE belt where he could reach it in a flash. The hand he didn’t use to shoot held the last smoke grenade with the ring linked to its cotter pin looped around his thumb.

 

Major Bludd stayed behind a squad of Vipers as he urged them forward. Every moment Crypto was able to delay them in the underground corridor was a moment his teammates could use to flee. Crypto called out to Major Bludd to hold his troops in place. “Wait, Major, keep your men back. I’m coming out.”

 

Bludd raised his hand in a ‘halt’ signal. “Everyone hold up! Stand by and stay alert!”

 

Crypto stepped out into full view, in the middle of the corridor, raising his hands in the air. He kept his hands clenched into fists, to conceal the smoke micro-grenade in his right hand. His Beretta was tucked under a fold of his battle dress utilities, out of sight but just within reach of his shooting hand.

 

The Vipers approached Crypto cautiously with their weapons pointed down at the floor but loaded and with bayonets fixed. The navy officer stood stiffly, his fists at about shoulder level. Crypto’s eyes darted to and fro, while his mind memorized the positions of the enemy soldiers creeping forward and the angles between his shooting hand and their centers of mass.

 

“Hold up,” said a Viper non-com at the head of the group, raising his hand to halt his soldiers. “What’s that you have in your hand, G.I. Joe?”

 

Crypto feigned ignorance as his thumb flexed ever so slightly to work the pin of the micro-grenade out a little. “Hand? What hand? Do you mean this hand?” As he spread out the fingers of his right hand, Crypto’s thumb yanked the pin out of the grenade completely, and he threw the canister down at his feet.

 

“Cover! Grenade!” shouted the Viper non-com, dropping to the ground instinctively. As the micro-grenade sparked and smoke began to pour out, Crypto’s left hand slipped under his BDU shirt and pulled out the Beretta. He dropped to one knee and fired from left to right, aiming in each angle his eyes had memorized just moments before.

 

Crack!

 

Crack!

 

Crack!

 

Crack!

 

The Beretta fired four times, the un-silenced report echoing loudly in the corridor. All four shots found marks in their intended targets, and the Viper fire team went down, including the aggressive non-com in the lead. Tracking around again as the black smoke cloud filled the confined spaces, Crypto took a series of snap shots at Major Bludd, hoping to hit the enemy leader.

 

Crack!

 

Crack!

 

Crack!

 

The smoke cloud had obscured the space between Crypto and Major Bludd by the time the former had fired his pistol. The rounds impacted harmlessly into the cement wall a few meters past the Major’s head. Crypto turned on his heel and retreated again.

 

“Open fire, you lazy Cretins!” Major Bludd urged, kicking a particularly reticent pair of Vipers in their posteriors while they were lying prone to avoid inhaling the grenade’s thick smoke. “Stop that intruder, dammit!”

 

***

 

Scarlett cautiously peered around the corner of a door alcove as the sounds of Crypto’s running battle with the Vipers got closer and louder. She raised her M-4A1 carbine and planted her feet about shoulder-width apart to keep her weapon steady.

 

She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Crypto dart around a corner and spin to face the direction the pursuing Vipers were coming from. He fired several rounds of 9mm from his service automatic down the hall, and scrambled for cover when a hail of enemy bullets came in response.

 

“Crypto!” Scarlett shouted. “Over here!” The lieutenant’s head moved back and forth as he tried to locate the direction her voice had come from. Scarlett was about to step out of her position when a fire team of Vipers charged around the corner from a corridor junction between her position and Crypto’s.

 

“There’s the intruder!” the fire team leader yelled. “Take him down! COBRA!”

 

Crypto was startled to hear Vipers charging at him from behind. He still wondered why he heard Scarlett’s voice calling him when he had ordered the whole team to exit the building. He swung his Beretta around and fired three times at the enemy fire team, and cursed under his breath when a hollow click announced the last shot in his magazine had been expended. Crypto ejected the spent magazine onto the floor with a metallic clatter, and slapped his second-to-last full magazine into the pistol.

 

Scarlett brought her carbine to firing position, shooting off two short bursts with deadly effect. Two of the flanking Vipers went down instantly. But her effort was too late. Another dozen Vipers that had come to reinforce Major Bludd’s decimated security section had discovered Crypto’s position and were about to charge.

 

Crypto fired in every direction he could, but he was pinned down in the small door alcove that was providing him cover. When his weapon was dry once more, he reached for his last magazine...

 

The Vipers charged him, turning their rifles around to use the butts as blunt weapons. Unable to reload quickly enough, Crypto had to drop his pistol as he squared off in a horse-style karate combat stance. In the space of a second, he deflected the first couple of blows from the Vipers’ rifle butts. Kicking one trooper aside and landing a solid punch to a second Viper’s jaw, Crypto was able to grope along his LBE belt and pulled out his combat knife.

 

“If you bastards want me,” Crypto snarled, waving the combat knife in front of him. “It’s gonna cost you boys big time!”

 

The Vipers stood back for a moment, just keeping Crypto at bay until Major Bludd rounded the corner and saw the situation. “Take the intruder!” the Major ordered his Vipers, noticing Scarlett half-exposed in the other door alcove. “And get the one down the hall, too!”

 

Crypto took his eyes off the enemy troopers surrounding him for just a moment and saw Scarlett with her weapon raised. “There’s no way we’re both leaving, Sergeant!” he shouted to Scarlett. “Get the fuck out of here now!”

 

Two Vipers ran towards Scarlett at the urging of Major Bludd, and she realized that the odds were against Crypto and herself. She popped a smoke micro-grenade and fired several bursts of 5.56mm down the hall before melting away into the shadows and heading for the escape route.

 

None of the Vipers around Crypto had been distracted by Scarlett’s escape diversion. They pressed inward to finally take Crypto down. Holding his knife out in front, Crypto slashed and connected with some of the Vipers, drawing blood from cut arms and abdomens. The Vipers all swung their rifles at him at once. A lucky blow knocked the knife from Crypto’s hand, and he went down after two long-reaching troopers struck him in the head and right eye.

 

The Vipers continued to beat down on Crypto, smashing at his face, chest and hands with their rifle butts. Unable to further protect himself from the onslaught, Crypto’s arms soon became bruised and stained with his own blood from trying to shield his face. The Cobras’ steel-tipped combat boots made adequate kicking weapons, driving home several painful blows to Crypto’s sides, abdomen and crotch. Eventually, additional blows to the head drove the last bit of fighting spirit out of the naval officer and he weakly raised his hands in surrender. Two Vipers reached under him, and hoisted Crypto’s broken and bloody body up for Major Bludd to look over.

 

Major Bludd stepped past some of the Vipers to reach out with his gloved hand. He cupped Crypto’s chin in his hand and raised his beaten face up to eye level. “Well, well, well,” the Major said with an evil smile. “Look what we ‘ave ‘ere. A G.I. Joe interloper has come to see our little building project! I hope you took a good long look, Joe, because where you’re going from ‘ere, there won’t be much scenery to enjoy. I’m sure the Baroness will have a nice cozy cell in Section Seven of the Baghdad Prison for you. You can say hello to the rats and roaches for me!”

 

Crypto reared back his head and spat a wad of blood and tooth chips out of his mouth. The spittle and gore sprayed over Bludd’s face and the front of his uniform. With a disgusted look on his face, Bludd let Crypto’s chin go, and the officer let his head sag towards the floor.

 

“Bah! You disgusting pig!” Major Bludd yelled, reaching back with his hand, balling it into a fist. “I may not be allowed to kill you, but we sure can have a lot of fun before we put you on that truck to Baghdad!” His fist swung around, catching Crypto in the side of his jaw. Crypto tried not to flinch, but the force of the blow turned his head sideways and he spat out a fresh wad of blood.

 

As Major Bludd turned away, the Vipers dropped Crypto’s limp body back onto the ground and began kicking him in the side and rubbing their rifle butts on his face once more. “Make sure you don’t kill him, you overzealous louts,” the Major called back to his Vipers. “Make sure the Baroness and the prison’s Medi-Viper have something they can work with. But enjoy yourselves in the meanwhile.”

 

***

 

2055 hours, local time

 

In the ventilation room, Sneak Peek scanned the trench outside the structure for guards, and then slid through the large exit duct. Dropping to the ground outside and landing in a combat crouch, the recon trooper motioned for his teammates to follow one by one.

 

The other Joes followed suit, and just as Chuckles was about to slide into the ductwork from the ventilation room, he swung his weapon around nervously when he heard soft footfalls behind him. “Scarlett!” Chuckles exclaimed. “Where the fuck did you go? We weren’t going to wait for you any longer! Did you find Crypto?”

 

Scarlett reached a hand out to Chuckles, which he grabbed to help the intelligence specialist climb up into the ventilation duct. “Crypto’s down, Chuckles,” she replied with a sob. “The Vipers got him. They cornered and disarmed him and were beating the crap out of him when I popped smoke and ran. I couldn’t get to him when he ran out of ammo. Oh, God, those assholes are gonna kill him!”

 

“They won’t kill him right away,” Chuckles said, trying to hurry Scarlett through the ductwork and out of the building. “I’m sure they want to interrogate him to see what he knows about our operations here. Crypto’s a tough cookie. He’ll find a way to survive.”

 

At the far end of the trench, the security team had moved their AWE Strikers and Armored Hummer up a slight grade to the top edge of the wadi where it came closest to the southern end of the trench. While Grunt, Footloose, Hit & Run and Repeater watched the vehicles, Sergeant Sure Shot and Walkabout observed the camp perimeter with Sneak Peek’s periscope and Sure Shot’s long-ranged, fifty-caliber Barrett Mark 84 sniper rifle.

 

There was a slight breeze blowing across the sand, parallel to the southern fence line of the garrison, and Sure Shot was adjusting the windage marks on his weapon to compensate. “Walkabout, how far downrange are the guards by the breaks in the fence line, you reckon?”

 

Walkabout eyeballed the sandbagged guard positions with their guards leaning lazily against convenient places and puffing on smoldering cigarettes. “I’d say they’re a good eleven hundred meters if they’re a foot. They’re certainly within your shooting envelope, mate.”

 

Walkabout swept the periscope along the trench and the fence line and spotted Sneak Peek dropping to the ground outside the concrete structure. The sounds of klaxons and alert horns blowing in the camp began to waft towards their position. “Look alive, Sure Shot. Sneak Peek and pals are just coming out into the trench. And it appears that the blokes ‘ave stirred up a spot of trouble!”

 

The Cobra night watch was slow to spring into action, which bought the five Joes time to exfiltrate from the trench without being spotted. The outer perimeter guards only began moving the tower spotlights in earnest when Major Bludd appeared, shouting from the central structure’s main entrance and leading the weak and disheveled body of Crypto out with two guards detailed to carry him along.

 

“Security alert!” Major Bludd shouted to the patrols on the ground and any towers that could hear his orders. “There are Joes about! Find and capture them pronto! COBRAAA!”

 

“Now, there’s a righteous target,” Sure Shot said as he peered through his scope at Major Bludd’s silhouette under the camp’s security spotlights. “I could put one right through his left ear where he’s standing.”

 

“I’d tell you to give it a shot, mate,” Walkabout replied. “But he’s got one of ours. Only five Joes came out of the main building, and there’s a body in American BDU’s being dragged along behind our friend there. The guards might kill our bloke if you wax that Cobra hot-shot.”

 

“But if I take him out, their prisoner has a chance of running!” Sure Shot insisted, pulling back on his AMR’s charging handle and leveling the barrel on Major Bludd’s face, framed by his black-colored battle helmet.

 

“Scant chance of that, Sergeant,” Walkabout said, resting a hand on Sure Shot’s shoulder to calm him down. “That prisoner’s had the shit beaten out of him. Looks like he’s in no condition to run on ‘is own. Cover the fence guards so the other five can get to us and we can bugger out of ‘ere.”

 

On the surface, the Cobra soldiers didn’t seem to notice that something was wrong inside the main concrete structure. Major Bludd barely felt a slight vibration under his feet when the Joes’ explosives went off in the structure’s computer room.

 

For the unlucky security troops that were still sweeping that particular sub-level the blast swept through them with a white-hot inferno, incinerating some twenty-eight troopers that were within seventy-five feet of the epicenter. Many others securing the sub level were badly injured by cement chunks or other flying debris, and still others were collapsing from inhaling the toxic smoke trapped within the confines of the sub-level. All of the Cobra troopers and laborers that felt the blast panicked to get out to safety, clogging the two usable stairwells in a rush of bodies.

 

As soon as the five surviving Joes on the infiltration team had moved a few meters away from the ventilation duct and were crouched in the shadows of the Super Gun’s support trusses, Scarlett pulled out her TDC and flashed Walkabout. “Crazy Horse Five to Crazy Horse One. How do you copy, over?”

 

Walkabout felt his TDC unit vibrating against his leg and fished it out of his BDU pants pocket to respond. “Crazy Horse One, loud and clear. What’s up with the chicken coop?”

 

Scarlett almost couldn’t bring herself to say the words. “There’s one wolf down in the henhouse, Crazy Horse One. Crazy Horse Six Actual is down.” She tried not to let the other Joes see her reaction as she brushed a finger across her eye lids. “You and I are in charge of getting out of Farmer Tom’s field.”

 

“Damn it to hell!” Sure Shot swore. “They’ve got our honcho! I’m taking the shot! Crypto needs at least one chance to get away!” Before Walkabout could react, Sure Shot had his fifty-caliber AMR raised once more, zeroed in on Major Bludd, who was leading Crypto and his guards to a small ambulance that had pulled out of the motor pool.

 

“Sure Shot, wait!” Walkabout had begun to say when the Barrett Anti-Materiel Rifle barked once in the night.

 

***

 

Tigris River

Three miles northwest of al-Basra

2100 hours, local time

 

“Gun it, Cutter!” Shipwreck yelled while ducking into the Whale’s pilothouse. “Those Cobra Morays are closing fast from astern!”

 

Columns of water shot up out of the river ahead of the hovercraft as the large-caliber projectile guns on the three pursuing Cobra hydrofoils hurled shell after shell at the fleeing G.I. Joe vessel. Cutter worked feverishly at the helm controls, steering wildly back and forth to avoid the deadly cannon fire. “Traverse the missile boxes astern, Topside, and clear our tail!” Cutter yelled down to the weapons control station.

 

Topside shouted a reply to Cutter up the pilothouse ladder, as he cranked the handles that operated the quad box launchers’ traverse mechanisms. “Launch boxes coming ‘round, Skipper!”

 

Gung-Ho and Wet-Suit had the twin fifty-caliber gun tubs facing astern already, and were holding their fire for as long as possible so they wouldn’t waste the few precious cases of belted heavy machinegun ammo the Whale had remaining on board. “Merde!” Gung-Ho swore, ducking into his gun tub to avoid a near miss shell that splashed into the river. “Let’s clear these bastards off our tail, pronto!”

 

Shipwreck leaned nervously over the edge of the armor plating in the Whale pilothouse, rocking from side to side as he tried to keep an eye on the pursuing hydrofoils. “They’re really getting close, Cutter! Like, two or three hundred yards behind us! If you don’t pull off a major miracle really soon, I’ll be close enough to French-kiss the Lampreys piloting those rusty tubs!”

 

Cutter glanced quickly over his shoulder at the approaching Morays and pounded his right boot onto the steel decking plates. “Topside!” Cutter shouted. “That firing solution would be really helpful right now, sailor!”

 

At the weapons controls, Topside adjusted the targeting display on the missile firing panel until the lead hydrofoil was centered on the small LCD monitor. “Stand by!” the sailor yelled up to the pilothouse. “Missile away!”

 

A fiery whoosh emanated from the port quad launcher box when Topside slammed his fist on the missile firing trigger. The high-explosive tipped weapon arced across the distance that separated the two speeding vessels. The hydrofoil pilot tried to react by swerving when he saw the missile’s plume of white smoke coming at his boat. But the seeker head on the Whale’s missile was smarter than the Moray pilot.

 

The missile slammed into the bow weapons bay of the hydrofoil, and the fifteen pounds of conventional explosives in the warhead blasted the ordnance bay and pilothouse to shreds. As the Moray disintegrated into the resulting orange ball of flame, the stern of the craft, heavy from the engines mounted inside, tipped down into the water and sank within seconds.

 

“Yahoo!” Topside shouted, amid cheers from the other Joes in the troop bay. “Scratch one Cobra bathtub battlewagon!”

 

“Great shooting, Topside!” Cutter replied. “Now take out the other two!”

 

“I’m on ‘em!” Topside called out. “Locking up number two on the scope!”

 

Another missile streaked from the Whale’s port box launcher, arced towards its target hydrofoil, and punched through the Moray’s main deck and pilothouse, exploding deep inside the craft’s engine spaces. The fiery, high-explosive detonation shook the hydrofoil’s hull and hurled corpses of Lamprey and Eel crew members in every direction.

 

“Scratch two, Cutter!” Topside shouted over the sound of the missile explosion. “Aiming for the last one!”

 

***

 

Cobra Garrison

Camp al-Shu’a

2100 hours, local time

 

“C’mon, troopers, get that sorry sonofabitch into the ambulance!” Major Bludd ordered, motioning to the running vehicle. “There’s a visit with the Baroness and Section Seven in this scumbag’s future, and I don’t want him to be late!”

 

As he turned to see where the guards and Crypto were, the Major’s metal-clad arm swung across his body and...

 

CLANG!

 

Bludd dove to the ground instinctively and shouted out, “Sniper! Clear the open areas and mobilize the tactical response group! Get out the gate and after them, you fucking turds! Get the fucking bastard that just tried to kill me!” Inspecting his body for signs of injury, Bludd sighed with relief when he spotted the half-inch dent the glancing blow had made in his right arm’s metal cladding.

 

“Fuck! Sure Shot, you missed him!” Walkabout cursed, pounding a fist into the sand. He turned angrily to grab Sure Shot’s sniper rifle, pointing the barrel in a safe direction. “You bloody well can’t follow orders, can you? You fucking rawhide!”

 

“I got him!” Sure Shot insisted. “I think I caught a spark on that damn metallic right arm of his! I must have only winged the bastard!” He scrambled to his feet and folded the bipod on his sniper rifle, slinging the weapon and watching Walkabout’s face turn red with frustration and anger.

 

“Well, you might have just blown Crypto’s chances of staying alive, young rawhide,” Walkabout said with a dark look in his eyes. “I hope you can live with his blood on your hands for not listening to me.” The SAS Colour Sergeant got to his feet and pointed to the AWE Strikers and Hummer. “Get the fuck over to your teammates and ride in the Armored Hummer. I don’t want you to get anyone else killed by your pigheadedness.”

 

The Joes maneuvering through the Super Gun trench heard the sniper rifle’s report and the metallic clang of the near-hit. They scurried along the last few meters of the depression and then scrambled up the side of the trench, retreating south to the rally point where the vehicles waited. Very few of the Cobras closest to the trench were even thinking about looking for intruders during that brief moment, since they were all diving behind cover to save their own skins.

 

Cobra guards and troops awakened by the alarms scattered out of the camp’s open areas for cover so they wouldn’t present an inviting target for Sure Shot to fire at with his long range weapon. The roars of several diesel engines echoed from the camp’s motor pool as a column of reaction force Stuns and Stinger jeeps were started up.

 

The reaction force began moving for the main gate on the northern fence line of the garrison, as a Stun stopped to pick up Major Bludd. A platoon of four Iraqi Army BRDM-3 armored reconnaissance vehicles also joined the unit, from a Republican Guard road patrol that responded to the security alert from a nearby Baghdad ground forces barracks.

 

Major Bludd stood over Crypto’s body, where he was dragging his feet and trying to keep the guard from being able to move him quickly to the ambulance. An angry kick from Bludd’s boot into the lieutenant’s side made the officer curl up to protect his vital organs from any further damage.

 

All Crypto could stir up was a groan of discomfort while the Viper guards hauled him back upright and tossed him like a rag doll onto the metal floor of the ambulance, closing the doors behind him and locking him inside.

 

Major Bludd climbed into the waiting Stun and rapped the Motor-Viper driver on the helmet. “Let’s get this rust bucket into gear and get after those bloody Joes!”

 

***

 

Hafr-al-Batin Air Base

Saudi Arabia

2100 hours, local time

 

Flint rolled over in an Army-issue field cot as he snoozed lightly. The metal framed rack squeaked loudly with every toss and turn, and the shrill sound echoed through the pilots’ crew rest room in the Joes’ alert shack. Because of their orders from General Tomahawk, and the still-underway expansion of the alert shack to accommodate more personnel, the space situation was fairly cramped and guaranteed the QRF members in residence little chance of privacy during their alert rotation.

 

From the neighboring rack, about two feet away, where Wild Bill was trying hard – with little success – to catch a few winks, a pillow flew over and landed on Flint’s head, waking the Warrant Officer up with a start.

 

“Will you PLEASE quit the gosh-darn squeakin’ and noise makin’ over there, Flint?” the helicopter pilot said. “There’s a whole room full’a whirlybird pilots in here what needs their crew rest if they’re gonna fly out in the middle of the dag-blamed night for you!” Wild Bill tried to cover his face with his spare pillow as bright white lights snapped on automatically in the Quonset hut. “Tarnation! Now what?”

 

A speaker system tied into the Operations Shack buzzed to life, and Colonel Courage’s voice boomed through all of the sleeping quarters in the Alert Shack. “Quick Reaction Force Alert! Recovery Op is a go! Scramble and man your helicopters!” Colonel Courage’s voice was replaced by one of the Ops Shack controllers, who was issuing orders to some of the sleeping Green Shirt ground crewmen, rousing them from their slumber to get the alert aircraft prepared.

 

“Shit,” Flint whispered, reaching for his black beret and the pair of combat boots he had arranged on the floor next to the squeaky cot. “There goes the neighborhood!”

 

“Well, doggies, there’s no rest for the wicked,” Wild Bill said, pulling on his Nomex flight suit and reaching for the trademark Stetson cowboy hat he wore, which was hanging from a wooden peg on the wall.

 

The other flight crews in the cramped quarters stirred to life when the scramble alert klaxon sounded. Mostly dressed already, the pilots only needed seconds to slip into their sage green, fire-retardant flight suits, and then zip up their speed-laced combat boots.

 

“Come on, people, let’s get flying!” Flint urged, running out of the alert shack’s main entrance door and moving from the Quonset hut, across the airfield’s service road, and right into the Joes’ aircraft hangar. Flinging open the door to the Operations Shack, he began barking out orders to the ground personnel.

 

“Snap to, Green Shirts!” Flint yelled, as many of the pilots and Joe ground-pounders assembled at the edge of the tarmac where the aircraft parking ramp began. “Spin up the QRF choppers and make sure they’re fully armed and fueled! Tow the hangar queens out of the way so Wild Bill can taxi the Sky Crane out onto the takeoff ramp and it can lift off with us!”

 

Using other side doors into the hangar, the Joe chopper pilots burst into the pilots’ ready room and drew their necessary flight gear, including survival kits and small arms. The Joe combat troops did the same by ransacking a storage locker which held their combat packs, LBE equipment rigs, and racks of assault rifles and ammo magazines.

 

As the sounds of helicopter turbines warming up carried into the cavernous hangar, the whining breaking the still night air, ground crew Green Shirts drove tow tractors out onto the ramp, hauling ordnance loading trailers. The trailers were heavily laden with last-minute weapons loads for the available Dragonflies and MH-60K DAP gunships, which consisted of 2.75-inch Hydra-70 unguided rockets, Hellfire anti-tank missiles, and Stinger AAM pods. They also carried boxes of 5.56mm, 7.62mm and 20mm ammunition for the variety of guns mounted on all the aircraft.

 

Lights played across the tarmac while Flint’s QRF crews ran to their helicopters. Team members of Sky Patrol, along with other combat troopers Duke had selected for the QRF rescue unit, steadily trudged across the ramp in a long single-file line, shouldering the heavy burden of their weapons, ammunition, first aid gear and combat equipment.

 

Flint reached his Dragonfly and climbed up on its skid, using footholds to get up to the level of the cockpit. One by one, he swung his legs into the cockpit and then wiggled until he found the right places for his body to go. He settled into the pilot’s seat, which was to the rear of the tandem cockpit, and felt the sensation of the yaw control pedals under his feet. The Dragonfly hummed and vibrated as the powerful turbines of the agile flying machine - at idle speed - spun the rotor blades above his head. Moments later, a Green Shirt slid into the gunner’s chair, in front of Flint’s part of the cockpit, and strapped himself in. When the Green Shirt was ready to fly, he flipped Flint a thumbs-up.

 

Flint exchanged his black beret for a flight helmet wired into the Dragonfly’s sophisticated combat and communications systems. He adjusted the helmet’s boom microphone to fit comfortably against his mouth, checked the transponder frequency the aircraft radios were set to, and then started the take-off checklist.

 

Flint recited the high points of the departure checklist out loud for the flight recorder to capture on tape, while throwing the appropriate switches and turning dials on his control panel. “Turbine fuel pumps are open and at full mixture flow. Master Arm is set to SAFE. Tactical formation lights are on. Engine pressure is normal. Reduction gearing is at maximum torque. All controls are responsive. Pilot is up!”

 

The gunner went through a similar procedure, warming up the day and night sighting systems and checking the weapons software that allowed him to select from the rockets and missiles mounted on the Dragonfly’s stub wings. He trained the 20mm gun in its chin turret from side to side and up and down to test the link between his helmet sight and the gun traverse. Satisfied that all was ready, the gunner turned the monocle eyepiece of his helmet-mounted gun sight into place over his left eye. “Gunner’s up!”

 

Flint keyed his radio transponder and then spoke into the helmet mike, as he gestured for the ground crewmen to move clear of the line of deadly helicopters. “Check. Check. Radio Check. The net is open. Bloodhound Lead to all Bloodhound elements. Final check before wheels-up!”

 

“Bloodhound Two is up,” Updraft radioed from the second parked Dragonfly as he nursed the turbines to full power.

 

“Bloodhound Three is ready,” Dustoff called from one of the MH-60K Blackhawk ‘Direct Action Penetrator’ gunships.

 

“Bloodhound Four is tactical,” Downwash reported from the other MH-60K DAP, as a ground crewman jerked aside the helicopter’s wheel chocks and flashed a thumbs-up.

 

“Yee-hah! Bloodhound Five is A-OK!” Wild Bill called out, as he taxied the large CH-54A Sky Crane out of the aircraft hangar to await his takeoff orders.

 

“Bloodhound Six is ready,” Lift-Ticket reported, at the head of the line of CH-53C ‘Jolly Green Giants’. The remaining three CH-53C’s, call signs Bloodhound Seven, Eight and Nine, were flown by Windmill, Glenda and Rotorhead respectively, and also reported in ready to go.

 

Flint changed channels on his backup transponder and contacted the air base’s main control tower. “Bloodhound Lead to Hafr-al-Batin Tower. Rescue force requests immediate clearance for departure! YO, JOE!”

 

“Immediate takeoff clearance is granted, Bloodhounds,” the chief tower controller replied. “Good hunting, good luck and Godspeed.”

 

With their turbines screaming like banshees, one by one the nine aircraft of Task Force Bloodhound lifted off into the darkening evening sky.

 

***

 

Tigris River

2105 hours, local time

 

As Cutter’s Whale sped south, weaving from side to side to avoid the last pursuing Moray’s cannon fire, a line of splashes crossed the river ahead of her. Cutter ducked behind the cover of the armored pilothouse and swore to himself. “Shit! What the hell is that?”

 

“Cutter, this is Falcon.” The voice from below decks came over the Whale’s intercom speaker. “We have a battery of Cobra Maggots positioned on the western riverbank up ahead and laying round on us! They’re set to bracket us and are finding our range!”

 

Cutter reached for the auxiliary weapons panel at his station, rather than yell to Topside. He pounded a fist on the firing actuator for the M-256 smoke grenade launchers mounted to either side of the Whale’s upper deck. The smoke projectors kicked out a dozen smoke canisters and bathed the river in a pall of dense gray smoke, while another volley’s worth of splashes in the river marked the Maggot artillery battery’s second attempt to sink the Whale.

 

“Missile away!” Topside shouted from the fire control station, as another warhead leaped out behind the Whale and flew astern. The missile struck the last Moray’s bow planes, breaking them clean off the hydrofoil’s hull and changing her ability to stay above the river surface. At flank speed, the hydrofoil plowed nose-first into the roiling water and broke up instantly.

 

Meanwhile, Falcon was passing out 66mm LAAW rocket tubes from one of the Whale’s ordnance lockers. “Zap,” he ordered. “Get the bow ramp lowered and raise the troop bay canopy!” The officer turned to face Lady Jaye, who was close to the pilothouse ladder. “Lady Jaye, tell Cutter to hug the western bank under the Maggots’ guns! They can’t depress ‘em low enough to fire if we can get in closer!” Looking around the troop bay at the rest of the tired soldiers and sailors, he yelled to the whole group, “Come on, you goldbricks! Stand on your feet and fight! YO, JOE!”

 

The entire hovercraft vibrated violently as a shot from the Maggot battery found its mark. Cutter felt the Whale pull hard against his steering and he could detect a hot sensation when the large artillery round blasted the starboard missile launcher box clean off the vessel, causing it to tumble into the water with a splash.

 

“Dammit!” Cutter cursed. “They got the starboard missile box! I’m steering into the river bank! Falcon, I hope your plan works!” From the starboard side of the Whale, acrid black smoke and electrical sparks flew from the twisted metal of the destroyed launcher mount while Clutch climbed into the pilothouse with a portable fire extinguisher to foam the damage down.

 

Shipwreck crossed the pilothouse, making room for Clutch, and was covered in streaks of black soot. His skin had patches of superficial scorching from the damage the Maggot round inflicted on the hovercraft. “Are you okay, Skipper?” the sailor asked Cutter, while he rested his M-4 carbine on the edge of the armor-plated pilothouse.

 

“I’m fine, ‘Wreck,” Cutter replied. “How are you holding up? Did you catch one?”

 

“Nah, not this time,” Shipwreck said. “I’m just a bit charbroiled on the outside. The radio panel’s been shot to shit though. We’ve gotta switch to someone’s TDC and call for help from Headquarters.”

 

“Just keep your head down for now, Shipwreck,” Cutter said. He then leaned over the troop bay ladder’s deck hatch and shouted, “Falcon! Maggot battery is off the starboard bow! Close aboard!”

 

The bow ramp of the Whale folded out of the hovercraft’s nose and the large, hinged armored canopy over the troop bay rose slightly to reveal the armed Joes inside, as the articulated, blue Maggot artillery vehicles loomed closer. The Cobra self-propelled guns were parked side by side along a broad gap in the riverbank’s tree line, and in full view of the Joes, since the battery crews didn’t have time to put the weapons under cover.

 

“Fire LAAW rockets!” Falcon ordered, stepping out onto the Whale’s bow ramp and propping his LAAW on a shoulder. He pressed on the trigger button, and the 66mm disposable high-explosive rocket launched at the closest Maggot. The small warhead shot into the open-topped gunner’s bay of the Maggot, setting off the gun’s ready ammunition and propellant bags, engulfing the large tracked vehicle in a hellish red-orange glow.

 

Despite the Cobra guns not being camouflaged or sandbagged in prepared positions, the battery was hardly unprepared for Falcon’s strategy. Cobra troopers from the battery headquarters and ammunition platoon returned fire from improvised foxholes, raking the open troop bay and bow ramp of the Whale with 5.45mm automatic rifle fire and the occasional 30mm grenade.

 

A close grenade detonation hit a corner of the bow ramp’s armor plating, which splintered the 30mm round into a number of dangerous pieces of shrapnel that sliced through the flesh of Falcon’s face and scalp. A bullet from the hail of Cobra fire also slashed through the skin of his right arm, tearing clean through his uniform and flesh and coming out the back of his arm.

 

“AAARGH!” Falcon screamed, reaching a hand up to his cheek to protect his injured flesh. The Green Beret fell to his knees in extreme pain, as Lady Jaye scrambled out of the troop bay to get a fistful of his LBE webbing and pull him under cover. Zap, Wet-Down and Mirage kept firing off their supply of LAAW rockets until the eight guns of the Maggot battery were finally disabled or destroyed.

 

“Falcon!” Lady Jaye yelled, as the injured soldier kneeled on the pitching bow ramp, doubled over and just out of her reach. As she tossed aside the Kevlar body armor weighing her down and scurried forward to make contact with Falcon, a hail of 5.45mm rounds from some of the Maggot battery’s survivors stitched across the open ramp, hitting Lady Jaye in her side. As she fell to the deck plates, clutching at her bleeding bullet wound, Mutt and Leatherneck moved forward and dragged both injured people back under cover and once everyone was safely back inside, Zap re-sealed the troop bay by closing the bow ramp and armored canopy.

 

***

 

Outside Camp al-Shu’a

2105 hours, local time

 

The Joes clambered into their vehicles with very little conversation, other than terse orders from Scarlett and Walkabout, organizing the group to move out. Walkabout took his place in the lead AWE Striker, with Grunt driving and Hit & Run manning the roll bar-mounted M-2HB heavy machinegun. Footloose drove the trail Striker with Repeater manning the dune buggy’s Mark-19A3 40mm grenade launcher, and the rest of the Joes took to the M-1114, with Sure Shot at the wheel and Sneak Peek manning the Hummer’s roof-mounted Ma Deuce.

 

Scarlett leaned out of the right front window of the Hummer, trying to see Crypto across the distance to the Cobra garrison. She dialed up her TDC to connect to Joe Headquarters in KKMC, and sent an urgent voice message across the airwaves.

 

“Helmsman Six, this is Crazy Horse Five,” she said, holding back another bout of sobbing. “Crazy Horse Six Actual is down and in enemy hands! Request immediate emergency extraction orders for all Crazy Horse elements! I repeat, requesting immediate extraction!”

 

***

 

G.I. Joe Command-Operations Center

King Khalid Military City, Saudi Arabia

2105 hours, local time

 

General Tomahawk sat at a steel desk in the communications room, watching the bustle of activity that went on around the command center’s night watch when Scarlett’s burst transmission came through on the TDC base station. He tossed his Styrofoam coffee cup at the closest trash bin and leaped to his feet when he heard the dreaded words “Six Actual is down” and “emergency extraction”.

 

The activity and noise in the command center increased fivefold instantly, as a communications technician acknowledged Scarlett’s call, passing her instructions to set the TDC to secure mode and to broadcast a GPS locator signal on their secure frequency. A duty officer had reached for his telephone extension and connected with Hafr-al-Batin Air Base, reaching the phone over to the General when he walked to the duty officer’s desk.

 

“Hafr-al-Batin, this is General Tomahawk,” the Joes’ CO said quickly. “Get the GPS location information for the Whale and Crazy Horse teams to Flint right away and scramble the airborne quick response force over the border! I need to have Crazy Horse extracted immediately!” Holding the phone to one side, the General turned to the duty officer. “Get anything you can online to help us find Crypto. Scan for his TDC signal to see if he switched on in panic mode. And get me any intelligence data on where the enemy might take him so we can plan a rescue in force! Let’s move it! I don’t want one of my men dying in enemy hands! Get your asses moving, now!”


	19. Extraction

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Sixteen

Extraction

 

***

 

Dear God,

Thy ocean is so broad, and my boat so small

I beseech thee for fair winds to fill my sails

And thy guiding light to carry me to safe harbors

May your firm hand still the most violent tempests

And may thy creatures of the deep allow me passage

So that thy faithful mariner may once again come home

 

-Untitled sailor’s prayer, author unknown

 

***

 

Northwest of al-Basra, on the Tigris River

25 July 2002

2110 hours, local time

 

“Topside!” Cutter shouted. “Finish off that Maggot battery, double quick! Knock out their command vehicles so they can’t radio ahead!” The Whale’s remaining portside launcher slewed around to aim at the enemy gun battery and fired off all four of its anti-armor top attack missiles.

 

As the deadly warheads exploded over the unprotected communications vans and soft-skin vehicles, Cutter faced Shipwreck at the Whale’s radio console. “Shipwreck, get Headquarters on the TDC! Report our damage and ammunition status! We can’t keep fighting through this enemy gauntlet! They need to send us a dustoff right now, or their precious mission’s gonna become a big fat zero!”

 

Meanwhile, inside the Whale’s troop bay, the Joes were trying hard to take care of Falcon and Lady Jaye’s injuries. “Come on!” Tracker shouted. “Someone throw me the fucking first aid kit!”

 

Rampart scurried across the troop bay, tripping over spent shell casings and kicking used up ammunition to the side until he reached the medical supplies locker near Topside’s fire control station. Finding a field kit of emergency dressings and other supplies, he tossed the box back across the bay to Tracker, while Mutt hastily tore strips of fabric material from the sleeves of his BDU shirt and pressed them into Lady Jaye’s bullet wound.

 

“Of all the swell fuckin’ times to ditch my body armor,” Lady Jaye said weakly, with an expression of both pain and frustration on her face as she rested her head in Mutt’s lap. The shock of getting hit and the emergency shot of adrenaline from her own glands coursing through her system made her seem to be on a drug high and oblivious to her surroundings, although she knew what had happened to her. “Somebody patch me up and get me... get me back... into the fight.”

 

“I can’t stop her bleeding!” Mutt yelled, pressing his fingers under one of her wrists to try locating her pulse. “Jaye’s not responding to me and I can’t find a good pulse! She may be fading out on us!”

 

“Stay still, Falcon,” Leatherneck urged, holding a softly moaning Falcon down on the troop bay deck plates while Tracker ripped open the protective paper wraps for a number of gauze bandages. The Navy SEAL pressed one absorbent pad on the gaping gash in Falcon’s head and wrapped it with the attached gauze strip like a headband. Once the head wound was covered, Tracker turned to treating and dressing the bloody bullet wound in Falcon’s right arm.

 

The Special Forces trooper was being affected by his body reacting to the injuries much in the same way as Lady Jaye, but to a lesser degree, since Leatherneck was able to keep him focused. “Jesus Christ,” Falcon swore in a painful whisper. “If I wanted to be groped with meat hooks like yours, I would’ve volunteered to be a slab of beef at a slaughterhouse!”

 

“Keep Falcon alert, Leatherneck,” Tracker warned. “Don’t let him go into shock. I’ll have the dressings on and tight in a New York minute so he won’t feel the effects of the blood loss. Give him water from your canteen and keep him awake.” The veteran sailor sighed when he saw the extent of the bullet damage to Falcon’s arm. It appeared that the enemy round ricocheted before hitting the Green Beret, so the bullet tumbled and ripped through the flesh instead of making a clean penetration. It was as if a rabid dog had chewed at Falcon’s arm rather than a gunshot wound.

 

As soon as the sterile dressings were in place, Tracker got up to bring the aid kit over to Lady Jaye and Mutt. “Keep pressure on those arm wounds, Leatherneck, and sing out if he becomes unconscious. I’m moving over to Lady Jaye.”

 

***

 

“Come on! Stay with me, Lady Jaye!” Mutt yelled desperately in Jaye’s ear, as he cradled the intelligence specialist’s head in his lap. He kept stuffing the torn shreds of his BDU shirt into the bloody spot where Lady Jaye had absorbed the enemy bullet. He kept swatting at Jaye’s cheeks to keep her conscious as she faded in and out of lucidity, a side effect of the trauma shock and blood loss.

 

“Dashiell, baby,” Lady Jaye said in her delirium. “Allie-cat is coming home to you, my darling... Keep the sheets dry until I get there...” Eventually her words became a mumbled mess as she fell silent and her body began to twitch and jerk.

 

Tracker climbed over Jaye’s twitching body and straddled her to hold her limbs still. He gently pushed Mutt’s hand away and groped into the hole in Jaye’s uniform to assess the extent of the damage, while using his mouth and free hand to tear open a sterile dressing. Wiping off some of her blood on the front of her camouflage utilities, Tracker moved his hand up to her neck and felt for a pulse, as a concerned expression crossed his face. “Mutt, hand me your knife, quickly!”

 

Mutt withdrew his combat knife and stared at Tracker questioningly. “Are you qualified to cut people in the field, Tracker?”

 

“Just shut up and hold her,” Tracker said abruptly, snatching the combat knife and using it to hack away a large portion of Lady Jaye’s battle dress uniform on the side of her wound. He stuffed several sterile pads over both an entry and exit wound that he found on her body and then tore off long strips of sticky tape to hold the gauze pads down. “Now press on those tightly to slow her bleeding,” Tracker told Mutt, guiding his hand over the bandages.

 

Lady Jaye’s eyes fluttered and started to close as massive shivers shook her body. Tracker grabbed her chin and shook it roughly to get her lucid again, to no avail. “DAMMIT!” he cursed. “She may have lost too much blood and is going into trauma shock! Her systems are overloaded trying to keep her alive and are now trying to shut down! Wet-Down, come here and help hold her steady! I’m starting emergency CPR!”

 

Mutt straightened himself out so Jaye’s head was well-supported in his lap, and Wet-Down grabbed onto Jaye’s ankles so her legs wouldn’t flail unexpectedly. Tracker ripped her BDU shirt open and used Mutt’s knife to slice through the cotton t-shirt she had on underneath. Cupping a fist into an open hand, and then turning both palms downward, he pressed on her rib cage just under her bosom to massage her slowly beating heart and to keep her lungs moving air and valuable oxygen through her body. In between the series of compressions, Mutt tilted Jaye’s head back slightly and squeezed fresh air into her lungs with a portable balloon bag and air mask assembly. Tracker worked hard to pump up and down on her chest to keep the effects of the trauma shock from stopping her heart and breathing completely.

 

***

 

In the Whale’s pilothouse...

 

“Headquarters! Helmsman Six, come in!” Cutter yelled desperately into his TDC unit. “Emergency flash traffic! Respond immediately!”

 

The hovercraft’s skipper angrily pounded a fist when he could hear some voices from KKMC trying to respond that they were getting the duty officer. “Headquarters! Dammit!” he shouted over the noise of the blowing wind and the slightly misaligned propulsion fans. “Our situation has become untenable! We have four... strike that... five wounded aboard, including two with critical shock trauma injuries! The Whale’s been heavily damaged and our missiles and large-caliber guns are bone dry! Cobra is on my ass at every turn; they know where we’re going and have pulled out all the stops to put us on the bottom of the river!”

 

Headquarters cranked up the TDC’s power to clear the signal, and Cutter finally heard Major Storm’s voice. The major stayed calm while he replied to Cutter’s report. “Roger that, Hatchet One. Message received and understood. We are acting to resolve your situation. Be advised that a heliborne rescue op is on the move and inbound to your area. Get off the river safely and go to ground. Locate or clear a usable LZ for our extraction team to medevac the wounded and hump out the mission package. There are medics on the way to take your criticals. Contact Bloodhound Five, a heavy-lift Sky Crane, to sling load your Whale for home.”

 

Major Storm paused while he observed a map overlay and telemetry blip that indicated the approximate position of the Whale from Cutter’s TDC signal. “We recommend you bug out east, as soon as it’s feasible. Intelligence indicates limited troop movements on that side of the river; nothing more than estimated small patrols of Iraqi border guards and frontier police. Set your TDC to secure and panic mode, so we can track your exact pickup location on the GPS.”

 

Cutter calmed down when he heard Major Storm’s instructions. “Understood, Helmsman Six,” the skipper replied. “Bugging out east and going to ground. Make sure that pickup gets here double quick!”

 

***

 

Above the Iraq-Kuwait border

2115 hours, local time

 

“Wild Bill,” Flint radioed from his Dragonfly. “Helmsman Six just called in our go order. The Whale is going to ground about twenty minutes northeast of us. Take Updraft, Dustoff, Glenda and Rotorhead, and follow the rescue plan we worked out. Stay clear of the Umm Qasr defensive zone. Cobra and the Iraqis have reinforced their defenses there and the _Flagg_ battle group is out of position to lay ordnance on them for us. Cutter and Falcon’s unit has five injured, including two critical. I don’t know which ones were hit. Tell Altitude on board Glenda’s bird to be ready for a hot extraction from the LZ. Get to it!”

 

While Flint passed along the instructions for Wild Bill’s section of helicopters, he couldn’t help but get the sneaking feeling that one of the wounded was Lady Jaye. Somehow, call it a sixth sense, or maybe just their own connection from being together for so long as both teammates and spouses, in some manner Flint had the instinct in the pit of his stomach that said she was in more danger than the usual.

 

Wild Bill set his navigation compass to track the Whale in relation to his flight path and keyed his transponder to reply to Flint. “Roger that, Leader-Man! Peeling off now! Wish us luck!”

 

Wild Bill’s CH-54A Sky Crane banked off into the night sky, while the tiny points of its formation lights guided the other pilots as the section’s Dragonfly, MH-60K DAP and pair of CH-53C’s turned away from the task force. “ETA to Whale’s position is roughly twenty minutes!” Wild Bill radioed to his section. “Watch out for snakes in the grass! Updraft, take the point!”

 

Flint flashed his formation lights and keyed up his radio once more. “Okay, task force. That leaves the rest of us to go downtown. Downwash, Windmill and Lift-Ticket, we’re going in hard and fast. Set flight level to one hundred fifty feet, crank up your ECM black boxes to their maximum and follow me on heading three-five-zero. Nap of the earth tactics, people! Look sharp for enemy patrols! YO, JOE!”

 

***

 

Aboard the Whale, Shipwreck scanned the eastern riverbank with image intensifiers while Cutter slowed the Whale down. The skipper shouted down into the troop bay from the helm station to get Tracker’s attention. “How are Falcon and Lady Jaye doing down there, troops? We need them strapped in to go ashore! We’re heading due east to find an LZ for an airborne extraction!”

 

“I’m rather busy down here, Cutter!” Tracker yelled back, as the other Joes in the troop bay stuffed any loose equipment and material into the Whale’s ammo and storage lockers before bracing themselves. “I’m trying to keep them stable, but their injuries are beyond my first aid skills! We need genuine medics at the pickup to keep these two from bleeding out or going into deep shock. They’re both going to need significant medical attention!”

 

“Headquarters promised medics in the rescue force,” Cutter called back. “Just do what you can for them and keep them alive, Tracker! Do your best for them and get them secured while I take us off this river to safety!”

 

Shipwreck tapped Cutter on the shoulder as the skipper turned to look downriver with his own set of infrared binoculars. “Cutter, I don’t see anything usable on the eastern shoreline to put us ashore. There’s no fording site or boat ramp we can use to slide the Whale up out of the water with. What are we going to do?”

 

Cutter noticed a slope in the riverbank where he thought he could put the Whale onto solid ground, and steered for it, throttling back on the engines to give himself a moment to think. He motioned for Clutch to come over while the hovercraft settled on its flotation cushion with a sigh of rushing air. “Hey, Clutch,” Cutter said. “Do you think the hull bottom and the bilges can take a few bumps and bruises? We need to go ashore and there’s only rough ground ahead. Have we cooked off all the gas we put down there?”

 

Clutch nodded at Cutter. “Yeah, skipper, the bilges are clean, so there’s no fire risk. I let some river water in to keep us ballasted and in trim as we traveled to this point, but that shouldn’t be a big deal. We’ve still got about half a tank full in the main go-juice bunker, and the fuel drums mounted on the depth charge rack are still full up. But if you’re asking about fire hazards, I’m not sure about the auxiliary line to the fuel drums. They were run underneath the starboard missile box, and when Cobra blew the launcher off, they may have damaged the lines or cut them open. If we turn the pump on and move the gas to the engine, the electrical sparking in the launcher cavity might blast the whole side of the Whale clean off.”

 

“I’m only worried about having enough fuel to kick-start the lifting fans to full power right when we hit the slope over there. The blast force into the air cushion should be enough to float us up over any obstructions on the riverbank edge.” Cutter replied, as he threw the necessary switches on his control panel which transferred power from the main gas turbine to the lifting fans. The single jet engine below decks roared as Cutter throttled it up to its maximum power output and got the propulsion fans turning again.

 

“Actually, Clutch, I have an idea for the fuel drums, to make the Cobras think we’re out of action,” Cutter said, jerking his thumb to the depth charge rack. “You and Shipwreck get up on deck and drop the drums into the river. Eject the sea sled and toss free any loose debris and armor plates. I’ll unhook one of the flare guns and we’ll leave a nice fiery decoy behind for Cobra to home in on.”

 

Clutch smiled with understanding. “I got ya, skipper. We’re on it!” He and Shipwreck leaped out of the pilothouse and moved astern to follow Cutter’s instructions. The sounds of objects splashing into the water were just audible over the whine of the hovercraft’s engines and Cutter withdrew a flare gun from a panel next to his helm wheel.

 

When Clutch and Shipwreck climbed back into the pilothouse, Cutter pushed the throttles to their stops and the Whale lurched forward towards the shoreline. Turning to face the back of the hovercraft, Cutter leaned over the edge of the pilothouse and fired off one flare. The flare cartridge hit the fuel slick that started to form when the gas drums were dumped overboard and it ignited, creating a wall of fire atop the river’s surface.

 

“Hang onto your asses!” Cutter yelled as he gripped onto the helm wheel with white-knuckled fists. The Whale accelerated towards the muddy edge of the river, and when she was up to speed, Cutter cut off the propulsion fans and routed all of the hovercraft’s power to the air cushion lifting fans.

 

The fans blasted the Whale up off the water’s surface, and the flat bottom of the craft brushed roughly over the low growth along the river’s edge. The bow of the Whale busted through some sapling trees, and when the rubber skirt glanced off a larger tree, the vessel began to yaw sideways.

 

As the Whale burst up from the side of the river onto solid ground, the hovercraft approached an unsuspecting Iraqi Army security patrol that was motoring down a dirt trail near the body of water.

 

“Look out, Cutter!” Shipwreck warned. “Three vehicles and an ASP at twelve o’clock! We’re gonna hit ‘em hard!”

 

Cutter tried to turn the large rudders to steer the Whale away from the unexpected Iraqi road patrol of two Stinger jeeps, an ASP towed anti-aircraft gun, and a UAZ-469 utility truck. But since the prop fans weren’t blowing, there wasn’t enough airflow to make the rudders effective.

 

“Brace for impact!” Cutter shouted, and he cringed behind the pilothouse armor while he glanced at the looks of fear on the Iraqi soldiers’ faces in the patrolling vehicles.

 

The UAZ-469 light vehicle was at the head of the column, and the Whale struck it on the starboard bow. The two careening vehicles hit like a pair of billiard balls, but the momentum and force the Whale carried did significantly more damage than the UAZ-469 bouncing off the hovercraft’s armored hull could. The UAZ was shoved mercilessly off the dirt road and driven head-first into a shallow ditch, coming to a stop by ramming into the trunk of a large tree. The truck’s fuel lines instantly ignited from metal-scraping-on-metal sparks in the pulverized engine, and the entire vehicle was engulfed in flames within seconds.

 

Hitting the utility truck had the effect of steering the Whale directly onto the road, but the hovercraft was too wide to travel along it for enough distance to come to a stop. The second vehicle in the column was the Stinger tow vehicle for the ASP air defense gun. The tow vehicle driver panicked and slammed the jeep into reverse gear without giving the assembly time to come to a stop. The converse reactions of moving forward and the wheels trying to pull backward caused the jeep to turn sideways and fishtail, whipping the ASP onto its side.

 

The coupling that connected the ASP to the Stinger’s tow hook broke free from the unexpected forces exerted on it, and the ASP literally flew into the Whale, bouncing off the bow armor and skipping away to land upside-down. Although the gunner was seated in a chair protected by a steel roll cage, the reticent soldier hadn’t belted in, and when the ASP came to rest, the gunner had a broken neck and was moments from death, splayed out in his seat like a morbid rag doll.

 

The towing Stinger clipped the portside bow edge of the Whale and was dragged sideways until the two vehicles plowed into the trail Stinger. Both Cobra jeeps were spun and thrown like flying debris, and their unbelted drivers fell out of the open vehicles’ roll cages. The fortunate one landed on the dirt road and was crushed by the Whale’s hull as it ground its way forward. The unlucky one was impaled on the wrecked hulk of his Stinger when it was upturned in the road ditch and the jeep rolled sideways, tossing the soldier’s corpse aside like a discarded banana peel.

 

After a few more seconds and over three hundred feet of sliding, the Whale skidded off the dirt road at a curve, blasted through some more saplings, and came to rest nestled among a small copse of trees.

 

Moans and groans came from the Whale troop bay as Cutter climbed down from the pilothouse. “Is everyone intact? You troops all okay?”

 

Luckily, no new major injuries were sustained by the passengers other than a variety of bumps and bruises. It was also a miracle that Falcon and Lady Jaye, far from being medically out of the woods, remained stable and somewhat alert due to Tracker’s diligent first aid.

 

“We’re not out of this predicament yet, people, so don’t breathe easy,” Cutter continued. “Torpedo, Gung-Ho, Wet-Suit and Wet-Down, you’re the recon party again. Haul ass outside and locate an LZ for the rescue chopper. Deep-Six and Rampart, you’re walking wounded, so you two will stay with Tracker, Falcon and Lady Jaye. Keep your weapons close. Everyone else, dismount and form a perimeter around the Whale until our pickup arrives. Agent Guilford, get your package together and make it as light as you possibly can. We’ll have to hump your gear out to the chopper when it arrives. Clutch, shut the engines down all the way and cut off the fuel so we don’t have a fire risk in here.”

 

Cutter glanced around the shaken and tired faces of the Joes in the troop bay. “Everyone know their jobs? Let’s get to it so we can go home.”

 

***

 

Wild Bill keyed his radio as his GPS display showed the section of G.I. Joe helicopters closing in on the Whale’s position. “Bloodhound Five to all elements. The sky’s getting black; we’re almost out of nautical twilight. Put on your NVG’s and tell Sky Patrol to stand ready. We’re going to be over the Whale in less than five minutes. Keep it tight, pilots!”

 

Updraft sped ahead of the lift helicopters in the nimble Dragonfly, sweeping in from the Tigris at an angle to confuse possible air defenses below. “Bloodhound Two to Five. Spot Report. I think I see something at ten o’clock low!” the attack pilot reported, banking his helicopter to the left and arcing out towards the river. “There’s an unnatural swath cut through the tree line and I can see three... no... four pieces of equipment overturned on a dirt trace right there. I count two Stinger jeeps, an ASP gun upside down, and a burning vehicle in a ditch... probably an unarmed soft-skin.”

 

The Dragonfly settled slowly over the dirt track, throwing up a massive dust cloud while Updraft and his gunner glanced about quickly. “The burning truck is a UAZ-469, a Russian-made utility vehicle,” Updraft added after visually inspecting the still-smoldering truck from the cockpit.

 

“Any sign of the Whale, Bloodhound Two?” Wild Bill asked.

 

“Looking,” Updraft replied tersely. He turned the Dragonfly south and side-slipped eastward into a hover over a wider paved highway near the dirt trace where he found the upturned vehicles on his first pass. “Looking...”

 

As Updraft’s gunship rolled through another turn over the paved highway, an Iraqi ZSU-23-4 “Shilka” air defense vehicle, supported by two Russian-made T-72 main battle tanks, pulled out onto the black asphalt roadway from under the cover of a tight cluster of trees. The Shilka opened fire immediately on the Joe attack helicopter.

 

“Damn! I’m taking ground fire at grid Alfa-Hotel 269441!” Updraft swore as green streams of 23mm tracer rounds buzzed past the chopper’s cockpit. Instead of a typical pilot’s knee-jerk reaction of running to safety, Updraft got himself under control and took the offensive. “Gunner, Master Arm is off safe! I’m rolling into attack!”

 

The gunner already had the vehicles in sight through his night vision goggles. “Targets identified, Updraft! Two Tango-Seven-Twos and one Zoo-Twenty-Three! Ready to suppress!”

 

Wild Bill’s voice crackled over the channel Cutter’s TDC was set on, as the Whale’s skipper and the uninjured Joes set their circular perimeter around the stricken hovercraft while their wounded teammates stayed under cover in the troop bay. “Bloodhound Five to Hatchet One. Be advised, enemy armor spotted near your beacon. Danger Close. A Dragonfly is in your immediate vicinity and engaging. Pop smoke at the LZ ASAP and break radio silence! Your pickup is two minutes out! Over!”

 

Cutter raised the TDC handset to his tired lips while Torpedo and Wet-Suit ran back to the clearing the SEALS had found to use as the landing zone. “Cutter here, Wild Bill. It’s good to know our friends are close. We’ve had a long and hard run out of Indian Country. Stand by for two flares from the LZ. Our wounded and the Whale are sixty meters west of the clearing, under some top cover. Send down medics with the first wave and guns with fresh ammo. We can’t get the people or the Whale clear if any other Cobra patrols charge after us while we’re taking off!”

 

“That’s a rodge, pardner!” Wild Bill replied. He switched back to his section’s frequency and called for Bloodhound Eight. “Glenda, you are a go to put Sky Patrol down on the dirt! Dustoff, cover Updraft with your DAP bird and engage any ground targets of opportunity!”

 

Updraft swung the Dragonfly wide as several additional volleys of 23mm arced through the sky. “Gunner! Lock up the Shilka first and take him out!” the pilot ordered, turning the nose of the attack helicopter around to face the armored vehicles’ positions.

 

“Locked on for a Hellfire shot,” the gunner reported, flipping the red plastic safety cover off his firing trigger. “I’m gonna kill him now!”

 

The Dragonfly’s forward-looking infrared (FLIR) and Block III target designation system bounced an invisible (to the naked eye) laser beam off the hull of the ZSU-23-4. When the gunner fired the BGM-114A Hellfire missile, it rode on the reflected beam and burst through the thinly-protected top armor of the self-propelled air defense artillery gun’s turret, flash-burning the crewmen inside and brewing up the vehicle’s ammunition.

 

“Target one destroyed!” the gunner called out in a satisfied voice. “Switching to engage the Tango-Seven-Twos; Point me on target!”

 

The Iraqi T-72 main battle tanks were formidable foes on the rolling sand dunes of the open desert, but against a dedicated tank-killing helicopter, their only protection was smoke grenades and a 12.7mm heavy machine gun in the commander’s cupola. The Dragonfly’s gunner made short work of the armored vehicles, blasting them to pieces with more Hellfires.

 

“Scratch two tanks,” Updraft reported to Wild Bill. “Start your approach to the LZ anytime...” The pilot paused in mid-sentence as an entire reinforced company of mechanized infantry in fifteen BMP-1 armored infantry vehicles rolled towards the rising columns of smoke from the burning armor. “We’ve got mechanized infantry closing fast! Five kilometers and approaching! Get our people out right away!”

 

“I’m switching to the Hydra-70 pods, Updraft,” the gunner said. “Let’s head ‘em off at the pass!”

 

As Updraft brought the Dragonfly into a hover over the roadway and then flew away from the LZ, the gunner fired off twin streams of 70mm high-explosive rockets at the thinner-armored BMP-1’s. The rockets lanced towards the road and saturated the head of the enemy mechanized column with fire and explosions. The volley was enough to knock out the lead three carriers and put the fourth, a BRM-1 artillery observation track, into a drainage ditch beside the road when its driver panicked and let go of its steering system.

 

A second short volley of Hydra rockets tore through the highway and felled trees alongside it, with the added success of blasting off the turrets from the lead BMP-1 vehicles while their three-man crews and cargoes of infantrymen scrambled to escape the lightly-armored death boxes. With the road sufficiently blocked for the rest of the mechanized company, Updraft rotated the Dragonfly south and met up with Dustoff to provide an orbiting cover for the rescue choppers’ landing.

 

“Enemy mechanized company is suppressed,” Bloodhound Two reported. “Glenda is clear to make her approach run, now!”

 

***

 

2130 hours, local time

 

Torpedo dialed into Cutter’s emergency channel with his own TDC when he spotted the blinking red landing lights of Glenda’s Jolly Green moving closer above the trees he was hiding under. “Bloodhound, this is Hatchet. You are close to the LZ. Stand by for two star shells in rapid succession.” Chief Warrant Officer Leialoha reached over and tapped Wet-Suit on the shoulder, and the petty officer set his assault rifle down to raise and fire one of the Whale’s signaling flare pistols.

 

Wet-Suit fired off two high-altitude flares called starbursts, which flew high over the trees and burst into miniature suns of bright light, illuminating the clearing below while they floated back to earth under tiny parachutes. With the area lit up, the approaching pilots could see that the LZ was marked with orange fabric panels the SEALS had made by tearing up their life vests and laying the pieces out in a large X shape.

 

“Two starbursts are away!” Torpedo reported on his TDC while scanning the surrounding trees for trouble. “The LZ is currently clear. Exercise caution upon touchdown!”

 

Glenda’s CH-53C touched down lightly onto the rough open field, while the chopper’s crew of aerial gunners leaped into action, swinging M-134 rotary-barrel heavy machine guns with night vision scopes in every direction.

 

In the back of the Jolly Green, Altitude stood at the rear of the cargo/passenger bay and stood up as soon as the loading ramp began to drop. “On your feet, troopers!” the Warrant Officer yelled. “Get your lazy asses of this bird and take up a standard pattern! Hooah! YO, JOE!”

 

The twenty-four other voices of Sky Patrol yelled out “YO, JOE!” in reply, scrambling to their feet and rushing off the helicopter with weapons at the ready. Altitude, Skydive and the medics, Talon, Tie-Down and Slingarms, were the first ones down the rear ramp, followed quickly by the five, four-man fire teams of Sky Patrol paratroopers and air assault soldiers.

 

Altitude turned to face the deplaning fire teams and shouted to Staff Sergeant Franklin Talltree, one of the unit’s fire team leaders. “Airborne! Your team’s with the medics and me!” As Airborne, Ripcord, Freefall and Crazylegs moved to escort the medics and helped to hump their portable stretchers and medical gear, the Sky Patrol commander swung around to shout for Skydive, who was his platoon sergeant and right-hand man. “Skydive! The other fire teams are yours! Get them into a perimeter and hold this LZ while we bring out the Hatchet team! Spread out and keep your heads down!”

 

Torpedo raised his torso and shook off some loose foliage he had draped over himself to break up his shape while he and Wet-Suit were lying in wait for the Jolly Green. He and Wet-Suit moved into the open area of the LZ and flashed their angle-headed flashlights at Altitude’s team to indicate which way the Whale was.

 

“This way, guys and gals,” Wet-Suit said, after Altitude and his troops recognized them and lowered their weapons. The SEAL led the Sky Patrol rescue party through the lightly wooded forest area to the Whale, while Torpedo followed behind, picking up Wet-Down and Gung-Ho from their covering positions along the way.

 

Wet-Suit raised a fist suddenly and dropped to a crouch to stop the group’s advance as shots rang out from small arms fire in the direction of the river. “Oh, shit,” Wet-Suit whispered to Altitude, who stopped right on his heels. “Someone might have found our perimeter.” After listening to the sounds of single shots being fired, two small thumps from grenade explosions and the rattle of a light machinegun, the SEAL decided there was no time to lose. “Come on everyone! Let’s get this extraction started!” He and Altitude got back on their feet and led the rescue party back to the hovercraft as quickly as they could manage through the undergrowth.

 

***

 

“Aimed shots!” Cutter yelled to the Joes as they traded fire with a handful of Iraqi air defense artillerymen in the distance. “Save your ammo!”

 

The distinctive chatter of a half-dozen AK-47 rifles sounded in the distance, from a pair of burning UAZ-469 utility vehicles, as the Iraqis fired from improvised cover at where they thought the Joes were hiding.

 

The six men and two jeeps had been the “tail-end Charlie” for the patrol that the Whale had violently run off the dirt trail, amounting to the remainder of a small air defense gun crew on their way to set up a position from which they could snipe at Allied aircraft working behind the battle lines.

 

Leatherneck had surprised the two vehicles’ occupants with a pair of well-placed 40mm high explosive grenades that shredded the trucks’ engine blocks and set the light vehicles on fire, forcing the soldiers inside to bail out. When they emerged from the wrecked jeeps, the other Joes had fired in their direction to keep their heads down while Rock & Roll peppered their position with his RPK-74 LMG.

 

Wet-Suit approached the Whale cautiously, his senses on full alert for potential trouble. He kept the Sky Patrol troopers moving slowly and crouched down in between smaller saplings among the thick trees of the woods when he breached the edge of the clearing. Just as he became visible to the Whale crew, Wet-Suit heard the click of a weapon’s bolt being worked.

 

Rampart had been hiding in the starboard gun tub, crouched down behind the hovercraft’s side armor plating. He brought just his eyes and the barrel of his M-16A2 rifle over the lip of the armor plate and trained the weapon at the tree line when he heard Wet-Suit’s soft footfalls crunching on the dried grasses and deciduous leaves that littered the ground.

 

“Halt!” Rampart ordered in a soft, but authoritative voice. “Advance one person and be recognized! Identify yourselves and no fucking funny business, or I’ll ventilate you where you stand!”

 

“Sparrow,” Wet-Suit said, raising his shape until he stood upright and reciting the code word the Joe SEALS had agreed upon with the troopers guarding the Whale before humping out to the LZ.

 

“Clear,” Rampart replied, turning on an angle-head flashlight with a red filter lens. “Do you come bearing gifts?”

 

“We sure do, _effendi_ ,” Wet-Suit replied with a chuckle. “Fresh guns, ammo, shooters, and an extraction team of medics for you walking wounded.” The SEAL enlisted man waved at the tree line where Torpedo had the Sky Patrol squad hunkered down, and the troops began slowly filing into view in the clearing, with Altitude in the lead. “The skipper will be pleased as peaches to see my pals over here.”

 

“Rampart, is that Torpedo’s team?” came a soft voice that echoed from inside the hovercraft’s troop bay. The voice belonged to Tracker, who was diligently monitoring Falcon and Lady Jaye’s vitals and keeping their dressings fresh to avoid infections in their wounds.

 

“Affirmative,” Altitude replied for Rampart, calling into the troop bay from a few yards away from the bow ramp. “We’re coming in through the ramp now. Keep your weapons in a safe direction.” The veteran paratrooper and Sky Patrol platoon commander motioned for Slingarms, Talon and Tie-Down to move forward to the troop bay, and then looked up at Rampart in the gun tub. “Where’s the skipper, anyway?”

 

“Cutter’s gone hunting for Iraqis, since Falcon was out of action,” Deep-Six said, in his typical, straight-laced tone of voice. “You should give him a call; he’s expecting you.”

 

“If I didn’t know you better, Deep-Six, I’d think you just told a joke,” Wet-Suit noted with a snicker. He helped Deep-Six out of the port gun tub and made sure his bandages were still intact. “Come on, sailor; the bus is waiting just a long block away.”

 

Altitude reached into the starboard gun tub to assist Rampart in climbing down into the troop bay when the coastal defender withdrew his TDC communicator and dialed up Cutter’s unit. “Cutter, this is Rampart at the Whale. Do you copy?” the injured man said, waiting for a response. “Our pickup is here. You had best bring back our buddies so that we can get the hell out of Dodge!”

 

***

 

Cutter crouched behind a thick, fallen tree trunk about sixty meters northwest of the Whale. The other Joes that had made up the perimeter team were arrayed to his left and right, using the darkness and cover as best as they could to stay out of the line of enemy fire. In between single shots from his Colt Commander cal-45 pistol, and short bursts from his carbine, the Coast Guardsman found the time to answer his TDC and Rampart’s message.

 

“Roger that, Rampart,” Cutter said into his TDC handset. “We’re pulling back our skirmish line right now. Is the package ready to move?”

 

Back in the Whale troop bay, Rampart ducked down into the passenger space with Altitude’s help and glanced around it until he found Agent Guilford, who flashed him a thumbs-up from her spot next to the wooden crates containing her data. The CIA operative had consolidated all of her materials into a total of four combat rucksacks and was just securing the packs shut with their fabric strips and cinch buckles. “The package is good to go, Skipper,” Rampart said as he nodded at the Agent approvingly.

 

“How about our wounded?” Cutter asked, waving at the closest of the Joes to pack up and haul ass for the hovercraft. The simple message would be passed on with flashlight blinks until all the Joes pulled back.

 

In the troop bay, the Sky Patrol combat medics had relieved Tracker of his duties, while the SEAL mopped his brow nervously with a shred of camouflaged, cotton rip-stop material torn from Lady Jaye’s t-shirt. The medics had unfurled their two collapsible stretchers and secured Falcon to one, while Lady Jaye’s trauma drew their full attention.

 

Tie-Down called out in Altitude’s direction to report on the criticals’ conditions. “Falcon is stable, but needs surgery to clear the shrapnel wounds on his face and to close the bullet hole in his arm. Lady Jaye may have punctured organs, but it’s hard to tell. She’s definitely fighting off a shock reaction to the trauma and is very iffy. We need to get her to a real facility and trauma doctors!”

 

“I think Lady Jaye needs to be medevac-ed out right away,” Rampart reported solemnly to Cutter. “We have got to bug out to the LZ now!”

 

Altitude motioned for Airborne’s fire team to fan out and provide over watch as Cutter’s group of Joes retreated out of the woods and into the clearing in a dead run. He then climbed atop the Whale’s pilothouse and tuned his TDC into the helicopters’ tactical frequency.

 

“Wild Bill, this is Altitude,” the Sky Patrol commander reported. “We have the package and are bugging out to the LZ right quick. The Hatchet One team is humping out their wounded as we speak. You’d better get into position to hook up the Whale, ‘cause we’re hauling ass and have enemy hostiles still in the bush and moving our way!”

 

“I’m a-coming, troopers!” Wild Bill replied with a South Texas “Yee-hah!” and fire in his belly. He brought the massive Sky Crane into a hover just above the tree tops that obscured the Whale from view. A long cable made up of several steel strands woven together, connected to six special cargo sling-loading straps made of fabric webbing and steel wire, snaked down to the hovercraft.

 

Shipwreck and Cutter burst out of the woods and motioned for Airborne’s team to pack up and move out. The two veteran combat sailors leaped up onto the top deck of the hovercraft by way of grab-irons built into the rubber air cushion skirts of the vessel. The men systematically collected the sling-load straps and connected them to lifting eye hard points around the Whale’s hull, snapping the straps’ heavyweight steel hooks in place and tugging on them to make them hold fast.

 

Mutt and Leatherneck had Falcon’s stretcher, with Slingarms in tow to watch the patient, and Tracker and Altitude had Lady Jaye’s with Talon and Tie-Down in attendance. The two medics kept working to make Lady Jaye stable, injecting a mild sedative from their portable drug kit and administering some basic painkillers to help calm her violent physical responses to the gunshot injuries. In small groups, the Joes all disappeared into the woods to march for the LZ.

 

Cutter snapped the last steel hook into place on the Whale’s upper deck and then looked in Shipwreck’s direction. The former gunner’s mate gave Cutter a thumbs-up and unslung his M-4A1 carbine. Both men jumped to the ground together and took a quick three-hundred-sixty degree sweep with their eyes for any pursuing enemy troops, before launching a starburst flare into the air to let Wild Bill know he was clear to hoist away.

 

“She was the most reliable hovercraft I’ve had yet,” Cutter remarked, peeking over one shoulder at the hovercraft, which was slowly being raised off the ground. “I hope Bill gets her home in one piece.” Taking one last cautious look at ‘his’ Whale, he followed Shipwreck hurriedly to the LZ.

 

***

 

Wild Bill nursed the throttle on the Sky Crane when he spotted the white-hot starburst flare, and hauled back on the collective that was next to his seat and under his right hand. The helicopter’s twin turbines screamed in the un-insulated cockpit, as the pilot used a firm hand to keep the cargo bird steady. While the five, sixty-plus-foot-long rotor blades bit into the still evening air, the heavy steel cable squealed and groaned as it came taut against the weight of the hovercraft.

 

The Sky Crane pulled and tugged for the sky, using all the power the turbines could muster, and then began to rise ever so slowly, drawing the Whale up out of the covering trees and snapping huge branches as the vessel was hoisted skyward.

 

Just as Cutter and Shipwreck finally disappeared into the shadows of the woods, a pair of Iraqi air defense artillerymen burst out into the clearing underneath the hovercraft and Wild Bill’s Sky Crane. They fired their AK-47 rifles desperately into the air to attempt to stop the chopper’s escape, and their bullets peppered the broad and flat underside of the Whale along with the bottom of the Sky Crane’s cockpit.

 

All Wild Bill could do about the Iraqis was point his unarmed chopper skyward and call for support, praying to God and anyone else who’d listen for the enemy troops to miss the cable and straps that held the Whale in balance below him.

 

“Dustoff, this is Wild Bill,” the pilot signaled on his flight’s radio channel. “I have some sort of roach chewing at my heels with some steel-jacketed lead and could use a little pest control.”

 

“Consider the bad bugs swatted, Sky Crane,” Dustoff replied, cruising over the rescue area in his MH-60K DAP gunship. Nosing the sleek and deadly ‘slick’ over, Dustoff swooped down into the wooded space where the hovercraft had been, and the two 7.62mm machine gun pods on the chopper’s stub wings rattled angrily, chewing up the foliage around the unnatural clearing, along with the Iraqi soldiers shooting from within with a hail of flying steel and hot lead.

 

“You’re free and clear to navigate, Bloodhound Five,” Dustoff reported. “I’ll hang with you until the rally point for our trip south!”

 

***

 

2145 hours, local time

 

Meanwhile, at the LZ, Skydive rallied the Joes to stay on the move as they raced for the loading ramp of Glenda’s CH-53C and got aboard. Rock & Roll and Mirage huffed and puffed while they sprinted across the clearing to the cargo helicopter, carrying the critical data Agent Guilford had packed. Everyone else clustered nervously around Falcon and Lady Jaye’s stretchers, urging the Sky Patrol medics to keep their injured teammates stable.

 

Cutter and Shipwreck were the last men to run across the LZ and both sailors boarded the transport helicopter in an all-out sprint, breathing sighs of relief when they settled into the fabric troop seats near the loading ramp. The men were so exhausted; they let their weapons fall to the helicopter’s metal floor with a loud clatter and didn’t care to reach for them.

 

“All present are accounted for,” Skydive shouted towards the cockpit of the Jolly Green. “Let’s get up and outta here! Call ahead for major medical support! Falcon and Lady Jaye are still critical! Go! Go! Go!”

 

Glenda turned back to look down the passenger cabin and flashed a thumbs-up to the Sky Patrol platoon sergeant. Altitude reached for a pull handle that ran the CH-53’s electric ramp winch at the rear of the main bay, hauling closed the metal ramp as the helicopter spun up its turbines and climbed to safety.

 

Glenda scanned around the LZ for one last time as she climbed out into the cool night sky. As soon as she decided it was safe to illuminate the Jolly Green’s bright white navigation lights and to throttle up the throaty twin turbine engines, that turned the main rotor, to cruising speed, she keyed up the flight’s radio channel and reported in, hoping that Flint could hear her report as he sped north to Baghdad.

 

“Bloodhound Eight to flight and Lead,” Glenda said over the transponder. “We’re clearing our LZ with a full and complete load. Falcon and Lady Jaye are critical, so we’re going to bee-line for KKMC and get them into the base hospital. I’ll have an update on the whole mission package enroute.”

 

Holding a calm and firm grip on her cyclic and collective controls, Glenda brought the CH-53C up to a cruising altitude like a veteran helicopter driver and aimed her bird towards Wild Bill at their airborne rally point.

 

***

 

Maneuvering at full speed just above the trees in central Iraq, Flint caught the transmission from Glenda reporting Lady Jaye among the critically wounded. He wanted badly to raise a fist and smash it down on something solid to release his tension about worrying over her and the things they had left unsaid.

 

But he couldn’t take his hands off the cyclic and collective at such a low altitude, lest the Dragonfly go straight into the ground. So he steeled himself instead, trusting in luck that Lady Jaye would be all right when he got back, and flew deeper into enemy territory.

 

***

 

Heavy machine gun fire burst out of the trees over the rescue LZ from the north as leading dismount squads from the Iraqi mechanized company joined the fray and tried to bring down Glenda’s Jolly Green.

 

Dustoff rolled back around the cleared LZ, followed by Rotorhead in the backup CH-53C transport. Both helicopters, equipped with M-134 rotary-barrel door guns, returned fire with gusto as 5.56mm ball ammo and tracers ripped into the enemy soldiers’ positions from above.

 

Updraft made one final sweep over the blocked column of the mechanized company’s BMP-1 tracked carriers, while the Dragonfly’s gunner shot up the convoy methodically with the 20mm chin turret gun and 2.75-inch rockets.

 

“Yahoo!” the Green Shirt gunner exclaimed. “It’s like shooting fish in a barrel!”

 

Wild Bill’s voice broke into the radio traffic from the aerial rally point. “Okay, pilots, let’s get back in flight formation, tighten it up and set course for home. Dustoff, take the point. Updraft, you have our trail. Gunners, stay sharp for surprises. ETA to home base will be thirty minutes! YO, JOE!”

 

***

 

Saddam Military Prison

Somewhere in Baghdad

2200 hours, local time

 

Drab, sand-colored stone walls rose above the surrounding area, topped by numerous layers of coiled concertina wire. Faceless Cobra Vipers marched in small patrols along the walls’ parapets, occasionally peering outside the prison perimeter with the help of powerful spotlights mounted on tall guard towers.

 

During the daytime, the Saddam Military Prison was an imposing sight to behold, a structure that struck fear in the hearts of Iraqis or foreigners doomed to be imprisoned within the walls of the facility. At night, in the shadows of the city suburbs and the Iraqi government buildings nearby, the prison appeared like a modern Gothic palace fit for the most evil of the Devil’s minions or a seat of power for a Great Satan himself.

 

The ambulance carrying Crypto’s bleeding, broken and subdued body reached the outer security of the prison perimeter and was briskly waved forward. As the vehicle snaked through the meandering access road that led up to the prison’s main building, it was stopped and searched several times by alert Vipers, before being allowed to park in a fenced-in area near the prison administrator’s office building.

 

A female Medi-Viper rushed out of the administration building and climbed into the rear of the ambulance, roughly handling Crypto while she examined the G.I. Joe naval officer. “Those fucking field troops sure messed him up bad,” the Cobra medic said with a sneer, looking down at the still-bound officer. “Don’t you worry. I’ll give you the medical treatment you need. I promise you that it won’t hurt... much.”

 

The Medi-Viper motioned for the two Motor-Vipers that drove the ambulance to attend to Crypto. The burly soldiers reached into the back of the vehicle and one grabbed his ankles while the other took up his arm pits, and they hauled him out to where the Medi-Viper had parked a wheeled gurney. Crypto was lucid and trying to struggle against his shackles, swearing and cursing that the enemy troops wouldn’t get away with messing with him.

 

The Motor-Vipers dropped Crypto onto the gurney and took but a few seconds to wrap three heavy leather restraints over his body, securing him tightly enough to almost cut off the circulation of his blood to some of his extremities. As the common soldiers returned to their ambulance laughing sadistically, the Medi-Viper reached into a musette bag hanging from her shoulder and withdrew a large, sterilized glass bottle of sedative and a nasty looking syringe with a very long needle.

 

“You look like the sort of man who hates getting stuck with needles,” the Medi-Viper began. “So I took the liberty of picking one of the biggest bore stickers I have around here. We’re going to have a lot of fun keeping you barely alive, my G.I. Joe friend.”

 

Crypto saw the Medi-Viper draw up several cc’s worth of sedative into the large syringe and then squirt out some excess to clear any air bubbles from the implement. He spat angrily in her direction with all the breath he could muster, cringing through the pain and rough handling he had received. “Damn you, you Cobra bitch! Get that pig sticker away from me before I climb off this stretcher and shove it clean up your ass!”

 

“Brave words,” the Medi-Viper said, smirking under her balaclava made of the same material as medical scrubs. “Too bad your deeds will never match them.” She leaned over Crypto’s body to administer the powerful sedative when a voice from the administration building called for her to stop.

 

The Medi-Viper looked towards the admin building to see two dark shapes emerge from the shadows of the main entrance. She stepped back as the tall, imposing male and more diminutive female approached the gurney’s side.

 

“Well, well,” the male said, stepping out of the shadows to reveal the cowl-covered visage of Cobra Commander. “We are so honored by your decision to pay us a visit. As soon as Major Bludd’s garrison reported your capture, I had to fly out here to meet you.”

 

The Commander swept an arm in the direction of a large clearing that was outside the fenced-in exercise area of the prison, where a tandem-seat FANG II sat under the watchful eye of its Gyro-Viper pilot. The more lightly armed, twin-rotor helicopter had been modified from the standard FANG II to be used as a ‘hack’, a staff officer transport aircraft for quick hops around the Iraqi capital.

 

“Fancy meeting you here, Snake Breath,” Crypto said with a mocking hiss in his voice. “Have you come down off your high horse to slither in the shit where you belong?”

 

The Commander didn’t visibly react to Crypto’s irreverence. “That was quite a stunt you almost got away with down at Camp al-Shu’a. Infiltrating a small commando squad over two hundred miles from friendly territory into a well-concealed camp. And then blowing up our computer room to boot, right under the noses of over a hundred well-trained Cobra security troops. How did you find out about the facility we constructed under that camp?”

 

“It came to me in a dream,” Crypto replied sarcastically. “I saw your little vipers’ nest in between images of naked monkeys dancing and walking, talking cans of Yo Joe Cola. I kind of fancied seeing the cola cans again. They were line dancing a number that rivaled the Rockettes!”

 

The Commander whirled on his heel to face the Medi-Viper, who cringed when she heard his voice turn angry. “Was this man already drugged with your sedative, Corporal?”

 

“No, Cobra Commander,” the Medi-Viper replied, producing her syringe. “I never took the cap off to stick him.”

 

“So you wish to be evasive and play games with us?” the Commander hissed, leaning as close to Crypto’s face as he could, dangling the fabric of his blue cowl over the officer’s chest.

 

The Commander’s steely eyes studied Crypto’s face and flashed angrily as the dictator showed his impatience. “You will tell us everything you know about G.I. Joe operations in the sovereign country of Iraq! Your mock bravado and snappy wit will not divert our efforts,” Cobra Commander said. “You shall fear me, American. You shall fear me or die.”

 

“Fat chance of that, buster!” Crypto blurted, spitting at the Commander. “You and your fucking cronies will have to wait a long time before that happens! I’ll see you burn in Hell first!”

 

Crypto spat on the Commander’s azure blue hood and cringed when the commander responded with a balled fist swung hard across the officer’s jaw. “Bah! No one will find you here! Not alive, at any rate! You will never see your precious G.I. Joe teammates again, unless they are brought to this prison to share a cell with you in Section Seven!” The Commander shouted angrily, unwilling to remove his cowl to shake off the bloody spittle. “Crimson Guard Deming, come here at once!”

 

The diminutive figure stepped from the shadows and stood beside the gurney. A round, Caucasian face, framed with flowing shoulder-length locks of blonde hair and deeply thoughtful brown eyes, stared evilly into Crypto’s eyes. Crimson Guard Lieutenant Deming was the ‘ _rezident_ ’, the head of the small intelligence department responsible for gathering information and performing interrogations at the prison. “What do you wish done with the American, Commander?”

 

“Take him into the dungeons and put him in Section Seven for now,” Cobra Commander replied. “The Baroness is flying here directly from her fact-finding mission at the al-Basra ambush site and will have orders concerning what information I want to obtain from him. Don’t take any especially heroic measures to keep him alive. Just have the Medi-Viper patch his ass up by morning.”

 

“We shall follow your orders explicitly, Commander,” Deming replied, thrusting her left hand up into the air in salute while the Commander walked to his FANG II and the Gyro-Viper scrambled to get the engines started up. As the Commander lifted off in the FANG, Deming nodded to the Medi-Viper, who re-drew her syringe with the sedative and brought the needle up to one of Crypto’s veins.

 

“Good night, Sweetheart,” the female Medi-Viper said over Crypto with an evil laugh, blowing him a kiss through her filter mask as she stuck the large needle into his arm. Crypto’s face contorted with the pain of being stuck with such a large needle, and then the sedative, a chemical derivation of powerful knockout drugs used on large animals, coursed through his body and he went unconscious almost instantly.

 

“Come along, Medi-Viper,” Lieutenant Deming said after Crypto’s muscles finally went limp and his body appeared like the dead. “Bring him inside and see to cleaning and dressing his wounds. He needs to look presentable for the Baroness when she and I torture the information Cobra wants out of him.”

 

Laughing between themselves, the two Cobra female agents guided the gurney and Crypto’s still form back to the prison administration building, disappearing into the shadows of the night.

 

***

 

2300 hours, local time

Southeast of Camp al-Shu’a

 

The stillness of the cold desert night was shattered by the high-pitched sounds of revving diesel and gasoline engines. Along the eddies and dunes of the endless sandy expanse, small nocturnal animals emerged from the shelters that shielded them from the heat of the day, to hunt for their food. From scorpions to small rodents that thrived on insects flying through the blackened skies, all were scattered as speeding vehicles burst across the sand.

 

“We can’t go to ground and set up an extraction LZ at this rate!” Repeater yelled to Footloose, as the heavy machine gunner tried to count the number of pursuing enemy vehicles by the pairs of headlamps brightening that part of the horizon that the Joes were fleeing from. Because of the darkness and the distance between the two groups of vehicles, a set of night vision goggles helped Repeater in his task.

 

“There are at least three or four Iraqi BRDM-2 armored scout cars on point, and maybe a half dozen... probably closer to a dozen, Stuns and Stinger jeeps. I’m surprised they’re not lobbing missiles our way or flashing us with a ground surveillance radar to get our range and direction.”

 

“They’re probably relying on headlights to follow our vehicle tracks, and I’ll make a good bet that they’re complacent because they know this part of the terrain and feel they can bide their time to catch us when we run out of go-juice,” Footloose replied, hanging onto the steering wheel of their AWE-Striker as the modified dune buggy bounced over a steep sand dune behind the column of Joe vehicles.

 

“I just hope there’s a rescue party where we’re going,” Repeater commented, locking and loading his roof-mounted weapon. He fired off a series of 40mm grenades from the AWE-Striker’s Mark 19 Model III automatic grenade launcher.

 

A string of explosions churned up the desert as Repeater walked the large-caliber rounds into the lead vehicles of the Cobra pursuit column and spooking the drivers into veering off the tire tracks they were following. One of the grenades blasted off a wheel belonging to the Iraqi Army BRDM-3 scout car on point, sending it rolling off-balance into a wadi. When the small armored car exploded, it blasted the conical machinegun turret on its roof high into the air, where it spiraled for a few heartbeats and then crashed to the ground with a metallic clatter.

 

“Take that one for Crypto!” Repeater shouted angrily in the direction of the Cobra column. “Eat hot grenades!”

 

The destruction of the lead BRDM-3 caused the Cobra column to collapse on itself, as fearful drivers bunched up and brought their vehicles to a stop to figure out where the fire was coming from. With prompting from Major Bludd, however, the column soon strung out once more and reorganized, with a unit of the faster Stinger jeeps taking the vanguard.

 

***

 

“Bloodhound Lead to flight; I see an explosion ahead. That must be the Crazy Horse squad making trouble for the locals,” Flint reported to the transport helicopter pilots following his Dragonfly at tree-top level and full throttle. “We’re approaching their GPS beacon, and I have the route of march and current position plotted. There are multiple blips in close proximity on the look-down Doppler radar scope. That’s definitely an enemy motorized column in hot pursuit. Everyone get prepped to execute pickup pattern one and stay sharp... Danger is close on the ground.”

 

“Crazy Horse Five, this is Bloodhound Six,” Lift-Ticket radioed from his CH-53C Jolly Green. “We’re tracking your position and direction. Stand by for a flare pass as we mark our LZ ahead of you and point your vehicles right at us. Lead is gonna make a strike run to clear your tails. This is going to be a rush pickup. If you can’t load your gear or wheels into the Jolly Greens as-is, then you’ll have to spike them to blow and leave ‘em behind.”

 

“Crazy Horse Five to Bloodhound; roger that,” Scarlett replied into her TDC unit from the right front seat of the squad’s M-1114 Armored Hummer. “Keep us covered up there.”

 

Lift-Ticket acknowledged Scarlett’s reply, as the line of transport choppers turned southeast to follow the Joe ground vehicles. “Bloodhound Six to Lead,” the pilot said over the helicopters’ tactical channel. “Your strike pass is a go. Bloodhound Three, stand by to release flares over the clearing that you spotted up ahead. Bloodhound Seven, we don’t have time for a staggered landing and stop, so put your Jolly Green down in trail behind mine and fan the security chalk out when you’re wheels down.”

 

Flint throttled back the engine on the Dragonfly to reduce the sounds the aircraft made while hovering behind some sand dunes he had selected to observe from. He watched the line of headlights belonging to the Cobra vehicles strung out and running perpendicular to his position, as he went through the process of arming his gunner’s weapon systems.

 

“Master Arm is off safe, Gunner,” Flint said. “Your pickle is hot.”

 

The gunner quietly acknowledged while watching the targeting crosshairs in his heads-up display and monocle gun sight begin to glow in a cool green color. “Weapons are up, Flint,” he said. “Night sights and FLIR are nominal. Gunner’s ready for a knife fight.”

 

“Roger that, Sergeant Wiley. We’re popping up to take a picture of the target,” Flint replied, edging the throttle forward and hauling back on the collective to slowly raise the helicopter above the peak of the sand dune. “Sight the designator equipment on the lead vehicles of the enemy column first and give them a full spread of 20mm and Hydra-70 rockets.”

 

“Will do, Flint,” Sergeant Wiley, the Green Shirt gunner, replied. A soft beeping sounded in the tandem cockpit to indicate the Block III designator system was locked onto a target. “We are locked and cocked!”

 

Flint clicked his boom microphone on while his hands made sure the chopper flight’s radio frequency was still selected. Pushing the nose of the attack helicopter over to gain forward speed, the pilot yanked the aircraft into a full-powered right bank so that the Dragonfly was moving parallel to the Cobras and its weapons could be brought to bear with a simple rudder kick maneuver. “Bloodhound Lead to flight, rolling in hot! YO, JOE!”

 

Sergeant Wiley set the main and thumb triggers on his control stick, tracking the Stinger jeeps on the column’s point position with his monocle eyepiece. As his head turned to the left, the 20mm Vulcan gun in the Dragonfly’s chin turret rotated into firing position.

 

“Get some, Cobras!” Sergeant Wiley shouted, as the chin turret flared with the pull of his main trigger, spitting out fire and hot lead.

 

The buzz and rattle of the 20mm caught the attention of a Motor-Viper who was driving the leading Stinger jeep in the column. A handful of bullets kicked up the sand around the vehicle, as the driver tried his best to keep track of the tire impressions in the sand that he was trailing. Glancing into his rear-view mirror, he grabbed the microphone of his radio and called out, “Heads up, all vehicles! Air attack!”

 

The Motor-Viper’s eyes bulged in fear when a second glance into the rearview mirror yielded the sight of hundreds of red-orange licks of flame moving along the column in his direction, closer and closer to his jeep. The stream of bullets stitched across the desert trace and into the open-topped vehicle, riddling the driver’s body with hot lances of jacketed steel. Without the driver’s hands and muscles to control the steering wheel, the Stinger veered off course and careened nose-first into a dune where its loaded missile launcher’s warheads exploded.

 

“Yeah! Brewed that fucker up good!” the gunner yelped with glee. “Changing over to rockets; put the nose on those armored cars, Flint!”

 

***

 

Windmill followed the cover of the rolling sand dunes southeast, just ahead of the other Jolly Greens in his MH-60K DAP. He then popped up and over the terrain features and raced ahead of the Joes’ vehicles speeding along beneath his chopper. Flying ahead to the flatland the pilot had spotted as a usable LZ, the MH-60K DAP dropped a line of parachute-retarded flares over an open, sandy plain.

 

Heavy drumbeats echoed across the desert when Lift-Ticket and Downwash flared the pair of CH-53C cargo helicopters for landing. As the Jolly Greens settled to the swirling surface, Windmill climbed the Nighthawk up to a higher orbit and circled the LZ to provide cover for the ground vehicles’ arrival.

 

Meanwhile, at the head of the tiny Joe vehicle column, Walkabout rapped Grunt on the shoulder and pointed out the flares to him. “Follow that line of flares, Grunt!” the Australian SAS commando shouted over the sounds of air rushing past their AWE-Striker. “Get the lead out and move this buggy, trooper!”

 

***

 

Having leveled out from their first gun pass, Flint yanked the Dragonfly into a tight curve to bring his rocket pods to bear on the Cobra vehicles for a second run. As he was paying attention to flying the attack chopper, a FLAK-Viper who was crewing one of the Stuns lurching over the desert traces climbed out of his seat and unpacked an SA-7 “Strela” portable missile launcher.

 

The glow of the first couple of Stingers hit with the Dragonfly’s cannon fire backlit the other column vehicles as they squealed to a halt and missile launchers and weapons barbettes rotated to cover their position.

 

“We cannot afford more delays in the pursuit!” Major Bludd yelled from his command Stun. “Engage that helicopter and the rest of you Cretins get back in pursuit, right NOW!”

 

“SHORAD is up!” the FLAK-Viper called into his radio mike, flipping off the safety on his SA-7 trigger and aiming assembly. He sighted in on the turning Dragonfly and focused on the hot engine exhaust with the anti-aircraft missile’s simple infrared seeker.

 

“Wax the fucker before he makes another pass and kills us all!” shouted the Motor-Viper commanding the Stun from behind the vehicle’s steering wheel. “Shoot that whirlybird down!”

 

“I have a good sight picture and a lock on his heat blooms,” the FLAK-Viper reported. “Back blast area clear! Fire in the hole!”

 

The SA-7 portable launcher became clouded in smoke and noxious rocket fuel fumes as the small missile leaped into the sky.

 

Sergeant Wiley yelped when he saw the missile threat indicator in his position begin to flash with a red glow. “Holy shit!” he swore. “There’s a SAM inbound at close range! It’s a heat seeker!”

 

“Releasing flare decoys and taking evasive action,” Flint calmly replied. “I’m cranking the IR suppression to maximum.” The pilot broke off the nose-on pass he had planned for the enemy column, jerking the Dragonfly into a turn in the opposite direction. He also activated the curious devices that festooned the chopper’s main turbine engines designed to dissipate the aircraft’s heat signature and make it nearly invisible to infrared missiles.

 

The main component of the system was a device lovingly called the “Disco Ball”, which was in reality a highly sophisticated thermal dispersion unit that looked like a shiny gold, multi-faceted dome attached to the chopper’s engine housing, just over the twin turbine’s exhaust tubes. It redirected the engine heat to make the helicopter appear to be a large expanse of natural heat, which often fools a missile seeker, when it looks for a distinguishable point of heat inside cooler surroundings.

 

Flint jinked hard a second time when the SA-7 turned towards the attack helicopter, throwing off the gunner’s aim when he tried to slew around the 20mm chin turret to engage the FLAK-Viper and the Stun he was riding in. The Dragonfly’s countermeasures rack spat out a long line of quick-burning tungsten carbide and white phosphorus flares, hoping to divert the enemy’s Strela missile just short of detonation.

 

While fancy flying and the use of an attack chopper’s standard countermeasures suite could throw off a second-generation Soviet model SA-7/7b or even the more capable SA-18 portable weapon, the Cobra modifications made the basic Strela a much more potent weapon. It was more than adequate as the column’s low-altitude means to counter the threat of the Dragonfly flitting around desperately overhead.

 

Flint’s piloting tactics were unfortunately not enough to stave off the enemy missile. The small Strela hit the Dragonfly from behind, tearing through the tail boom and heavily damaging the aircraft’s NOTAR ducted tail fan steering system. Smoke poured out of the hole the missile ripped in the chopper, and warning alarms sounded all through the cockpit as a number of critical flight controls and systems were affected all at once.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, at the Joes’ Landing Zone:

 

The two large CH-53C Jolly Greens sagged onto their landing gear wheels as they touched down amid the swirling sands of their open-desert LZ. The helicopters’ cargo ramps were lowering long before the whirlybirds were aligned at the LZ, and as the weight of the big choppers settled on their gear struts, Joe troops were charging out of the loading ramps and fanning out for combat.

 

Captain Claymore, a hard-nosed, veteran commando, had been hand-picked by Duke to lead the ground element. He was the first of his chalk to step off the Jolly Green and after a rapid scan of the surroundings, immediately barked out orders to the other deplaning troopers.

 

“Alright, you ugly mugs!” Claymore began. “We’re doing this by the numbers just like we rehearsed at Hafr-al-Batin! Lifeline, Stretcher and Sideswipe, you Joes form up the aid station on board Bloodhound Six and stand by for Crazy Horse’s arrival! Everyone else, deploy into your fire teams!”

 

Small groups of four Joes each separated, each trooper cradling either an M-16/M-203 combination, a light machinegun of their preference, or an M-4 carbine and anti-armor missile launcher. Claymore wasted no time in aligning them into defensive watch positions.

 

“Recondo, Sandstorm, Roadblock and Back-Blast,” the captain said. “You men take the northwest quadrant. Dusty, Ambush, Salvo and Double Blast will handle the northeast. Bazooka, Crossfire, Sidetrack and Recoil will have the southeast, and Tunnel Rat, Roughneck, Muskrat and Pathfinder have southwest. As for the rest of you, Downtown, Short-Fuse and Sparks will form my platoon command and observation post. Spirit, Dart, Bulldozer, Tripwire and Whiplash are the reception team. As soon as the Crazy Horse vehicles arrive, you troopers will help the chopper crews marshal the equipment and get them secured aboard the Jollies.”

 

The troops assembled around Claymore nodded in the dim glow of their red-filtered flashlights. Each one knew his job and was ready. “What are you boners waiting for? An engraved invitation?” Claymore shouted. “Take your sectors! Move your asses and stay alive out there!”

 

As the security teams dispersed to protect the landing zone, a roar startled everybody in the area. Weapons were leveled, and the first of the Crazy Horse team vehicles burst into the LZ and squealed to a stop.

 

“Damn glad to see you blokes out ‘ere!” Walkabout shouted, climbing out of the AWE-Striker and leaping to the ground. He ran over to Claymore and snapped a salute as the other Joes arrived. “Crazy Horse One reporting, Captain. Our team is ready and willing to get home, sir!”

 

***

 

“Mayday... mayday... mayday,” Flint said calmly into his radio, with only a hint of urgency in his voice. “Bloodhound Lead is hit and going down. I’ve lost rudder control in the tail, and attempting to auto-rotate in for a landing. Approximate grid reference Tango-Juliet 447188, eight klicks from LZ Ugly. All Joe elements... mayday... mayday... mayday.”

 

Flint followed his emergency procedures to the letter, using the torque from his turbine engines and the remaining lift in the main rotor to try to bring the Dragonfly down safely, regulating the speed and rate of descent by adjusting the rotor blade pitch and engine rpm. Without the NOTAR unit functioning to provide steering controls, Flint and Sergeant Wiley were for the most part merely passengers, subject to the continued function of the chopper’s turbines, the laws of physics and gravity, and blind luck.

 

The two Joes bravely rode the Dragonfly into the ground, as the airframe of the helicopter slammed hard in a vertical motion into the desert floor, the impact smashing the stricken helicopter into a number of pieces and throwing broken metal and shrapnel in a path along the sand.

 

“The enemy helicopter is down a few kilometers to the west, Major Bludd,” a Motor-Viper reported, looking through a night vision device and pointing in the direction of the crash site where a column of smoke had begun to rise. “Shall we send a section over to have a look at it, sir?”

 

“Yes, let’s go over there and count the bodies, Sergeant,” Major Bludd replied, signaling for one of the reaction force’s platoon commanders to bring his Stinger jeep alongside. “Lieutenant, take the Iraqi BRDM’s and your remaining Stinger pursuit platoons and continue to follow the Joes’ tracks. The Stun platoons will come with me to investigate the Dragonfly crash. Move the force out! COBRA!”

 

***

 

Sparks, one of the Joes’ signal specialists and Waveform, the Crazy Horse squad’s radar expert, erected a portable ground surveillance unit and the blips on the small display caused the men some concern.

 

“Claymore, this is Sparks at the observation post,” the radioman reported. “Our portable GSR shows the enemy unit has split into two groups, and the larger one is coming at us from the north!”

 

Captain Claymore leaped out of Downwash’s Jolly Green, where the flight engineers were preparing the cargo bay and the CH-53C’s underbelly loading point for the equipment they were assigned to load for transporting home.

 

“All perimeter security teams are to re-position and orient to the north!” Claymore shouted into his TDC in walkie-talkie mode. “All team leaders check in! Spirit, haul your team’s asses out to the perimeter and organize the defensive line!”

 

Joes scrambled from the extreme edges of the landing zone, abandoning their hastily scratched out foxholes to form a skirmish line, facing the direction the Cobra jeeps and Iraqi armored cars were approaching from. Using rifle butts and small entrenching tools, the troopers scratched out new fighting positions so that they could fend off the enemy vehicles long enough to load the Crazy Horse squad’s equipment into the Jolly Greens and be ready for take-off.

 

Tripwire, Bulldozer and Whiplash were busy guiding Grunt and Footloose while the two infantry troopers drove their AWE Strikers into Lift-Ticket’s waiting helicopter. Spirit and Dart, with the help of two of Downwash’s flight engineers had gotten Sergeant Sure-Shot, who was at the wheel of the Armored Hummer and its attached High-Mobility Trailer, turned around so that he could back the HMT into the cargo cabin and then get the Hummer rigged for carrying back under the CH-53C.

 

Once the vehicles were mostly in place, the Crazy Horse team members began rearranging their more sensitive equipment so that the items could be secured before take-off.

 

“AWE Strikers are almost loaded up in Bloodhound Six,” Spirit reported, motioning for his team to pick up their weapons and move to the north. He and Dart sprinted out to meet the other men in their team, while the flight crewmen finished securing sling loading straps to the Armored Hummer and tying down the small equipment trailer inside the cargo bay.

 

Meanwhile, Windmill had his crew chief tuning into the emergency locator transmitter frequency in response to Flint’s mayday message. The MH-60K’s advanced communications fit included a direction finder for locating crashed aircraft outfitted with the ELT device. The crew chief quickly gave the pilot a thumbs-up, when the distinctive tone of an ELT transponder box was received by the radio equipment.

 

The pilot moved quickly to turn the Nighthawk Direct Action Penetrator helicopter in the direction of the crash site. “Lift-Ticket, this is Windmill. Spot Report. Bloodhound Lead is confirmed down hard on the deck, eight klicks north-by-northwest of the LZ. I’m going to try a solo recovery, or at least look for survivors. We can manage one strafing pass on the enemy vehicles before I turn away to start a search for the Dragonfly. Your ground-pounders will have to hold the line on their own if you can’t get airborne in the next five minutes!”

 

“We’ll punch at the Cobras and hold the line as long as we can, Windmill,” Lift-Ticket replied. “Joes never leave their own behind if there’s a chance to pull ‘em out! Go bring us back some live ones!” Switching radio channels, Lift-Ticket called Claymore on his TDC. “Claymore, this is Lift-Ticket. Prepare your troops for a big bad knife fight. Bloodhound Three can only make one pass for air cover and then they’re going out to find Flint. Lead has gone down eight kilometers from here. Get Scarlett or Walkabout, and the two of you report to my cockpit double-time!”

 

Recondo’s voice was next to come over Claymore’s TDC, and the soldier was speaking very rapidly, which was uncharacteristic of the veteran jungle fighter. “Claymore, this is Recondo, on the left flank of the skirmish line! Flash Spot Report! We have visual contact with six-plus enemy vehicles at three-two-five degrees; best guess range is eleven hundred meters and closing fast! We’re looking down the business end of a whole world of hurt, if we don’t pull up stakes and take off real quick!”

 

“Hold the line for now and dig in, Recondo,” Claymore ordered, running through the cargo cabin of Lift-Ticket’s Jolly Green past the Green Shirt flight engineers who were tying down the AWE Strikers, until he reached the thin aluminum cockpit door. Scarlett was beside the officer in mere heartbeats and the two Joes entered the back of the spacious cockpit together.

 

“I’ve got bad news,” Lift-Ticket said to Claymore and Scarlett, turning around in his pilot’s seat to face the two of them. “Flint’s gone down about eight klicks from here. Windmill’s gone over there to locate the wreckage and check for survivors.”

 

Scarlett was nearly overcome with the news. Her normally tough and unbreakable facade faded away and her entire face became crestfallen as her eyes dropped to the floor and her lips turned down into a sad pout. “Damn Cobras...” she mumbled. Then her eyes flashed as she channeled her anger and became determined to take action.

 

“Why don’t we dismount the vehicles again and send an assault team over to the crash site to recover Flint?” Scarlett asked, her look of concern switching to firm determination.

 

“We’ll never get you unloaded and rolling in time to beat the Cobras that are about to reach our perimeter, for one thing,” Claymore answered for Lift-Ticket. “And, splitting the force at this point is a dangerous and impractical idea. Your vehicles would have to cover us while we load my troops onto the Jolly Greens and take off. Then we have to provide air cover for your ‘soft-skins’ in transit and under enemy fire with our little door-mounted pop guns, only to attempt a coordinated air and ground assault on the Cobra equipment converging on the Dragonfly.” The infantry officer’s face was stern from years of leading tough combat missions, as he explained as quickly as he could. “There’s no way for you to load thirty-five Joes onto the AWE Strikers and Hummer, with weapons and fresh ammo, to cover those eight klicks on the ground and in force, either.”

 

“If we try to clear the CH-53’s out of this LZ without fending off those approaching Cobra vehicles, we’ll be sitting ducks for their missiles and guns. A Jolly Green doesn’t fly like a Dragonfly, you know,” Lift-Ticket added. “Despite the six mini-guns we have between us, whatever the column had that brought Flint down could kill us all as well.”

 

“Okay, so we’re making our stand here, until the LZ is clear,” Scarlett finally agreed with a frustrated tone. She reached angrily for the collar of Lift-Ticket’s flight suit until Claymore reacted, suddenly reaching around her waist to restrain her from doing any damage to the pilot. Her voice raised an octave as she tried wiggling free. “You just better be fucking sure that the next stop we make is that goddamn crash site! We are NOT gonna leave Flint and his copilot out there alone and surrounded by the enemy!”

 

“I promise you, we’ll try to get to them,” Lift-Ticket said, motioning to Claymore to let Scarlett loose. “Windmill’s our best hope of finding anyone over there right now, and his crew will do their very best to check out the site. If there’s any chance at all of rescuing them, I know they’ll go in under enemy fire or the devil’s own breath to pluck the Dragonfly crew out. Right now, we have to worry about our own situation and getting out of this spot before it becomes a noose ‘round our necks.”

 

Scarlett wanted to find a corner to break down and sob, since she took the potential loss of any team member hard. But the feelings of losing Crypto to Cobra troops right in front of her own eyes and then the possibility of Flint falling into enemy hands due to her impotence in the face of the immediate enemy threat was unbearable. She shoved those feelings down deep and took a moment to fight back the tears. Lift-Ticket turned back to his control panel respectfully, understanding the kind of pressure the veteran Joe was under.

 

Claymore had already turned and left the cockpit when Scarlett was back in charge of herself, having rushed to the cargo helicopter’s equipment bins to hand out M-202 four-round, disposable anti-tank rocket launchers and single-shot LAAW tubes to Walkabout and the Crazy Horse squad’s troopers. Having accomplished getting the anti-armor weapons moving for the battle line, Claymore moved to join Sparks, Downtown and Short-Fuse at the platoon command post.

 

When Scarlett emerged from the Jolly Green with her rifle in hand, Walkabout was carrying his own weapon and an armload of LAAW tubes, with a pair of M-202 quad launchers slung over his back. He was shouting out commands to the rest of the Crazy Horse squad while they looked for Claymore’s fire teams and some cover of their own to fight from.

 

“Come on, you apes!” Walkabout shouted across the LZ, moving in a heavy-footed run. “Get back on those tired feet, draw your weapons and prepare to fight! Did you turds think you’d be living forever? Let’s go! Haul arse! The Joe who knocks off the first enemy vehicle in range gets a night’s worth of piss-water on my dollar back at the base!”

 

Windmill’s MH-60K DAP thumped through the air as it banked over the LZ and the ground troops’ defensive positions. With the throttles at full power, the sleek transport sped away from the Joes and nosed downward to begin its strafing run.

 

Alerted and more cautious to the Joe threat, the pursuit column’s BRDM-2’s opened up with their 12.7mm machine gun turrets, throwing up a hail of steel around Windmill’s path. The Motor-Vipers driving the Stinger jeeps also attempted to lock their short-range missile launchers onto the helicopter, but found targeting it while on the move a near-impossible evolution.

 

Even though Windmill’s crew returned fire with the cal-50 machine gun pods and Hydra rockets on the stub wings, they only scored a hit on an already-damaged Stinger that was lagging behind the other vehicles. Not even staying around to see what they had hit, the MH-60K turned hard into the sky and climbed out of its attack run to go look for Flint’s Dragonfly.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, at the Dragonfly crash site:

 

Flint shook his head and blinked away a hazy focus in his eyes. He looked around to get his bearings and remembered how he had gotten into the predicament where he was. Slightly dazed from the crash, Flint’s hands were still locked tenaciously on the cyclic stick that protruded up out of the pilot’s control panel between his legs.

 

The Warrant Officer felt a sharp pain in his leg, so he separated his hands from the cyclic and they shook uncontrollably when he tried to grope around in the dark to his legs. The crash, although violent, had miraculously done no physical damage to Flint’s body; his pain radiated from his left thigh, where the sharp metal edge of his kneeboard’s paper jaw had gotten jammed between his leg and the inside wall of the cockpit just before the Dragonfly hit the ground.

 

Gently working the stack of folded tactical piloting charts of the area and flight plan documents out of the kneeboard, he was able to get everything un-jammed. He tucked the paperwork inside his zippered flight suit, in case the maps might come in useful while evading the enemy later on. He then freed the kneeboard itself, tearing away the Velcro strap that held it tightly around his thigh, and discarded it.

 

Once he knew that he was intact, Flint looked past his control panel and heads-up display unit to see if Sergeant Wiley was still alive. He was only able to see the top of the gunner’s helmet from his seat, and there seemed to be no reaction when he called out the Green Shirt’s name repeatedly.

 

“Come on, Sergeant Wiley! Give me a sign,” Flint yelled, repeating the gunner’s name. “Wake up, troop! We have to get out of here!” Sergeant Wiley still failed to respond. Flint checked himself over once more for any hidden injuries, cuts, scrapes or blood, and satisfied that he was fully intact, unlocked the hinged cockpit canopy to raise it up over their heads.

 

Flint swung his legs over the cockpit edge and dropped to the ground. He noted immediately upon touching the sand with his combat boots that he had had a very unsuccessful emergency landing. Playing his Army-issued flashlight around the area, he assessed in his mind what had happened in the moments before he brought the Dragonfly down and blacked out from the impact G-forces.

 

Half of the tail boom, the part with the NOTAR ducted fan unit and the V-shaped tails, had sheared completely off from the Dragonfly’s main body and fell separately to the earth, being smashed to pieces in a long trail of debris that littered the desert floor for tens of meters. The holes in the rear of the fuselage where the FLAK-Viper’s missile had struck were still visible in the part of the tail boom still rooted to the engine assemblage and cockpit. The small black box that housed the emergency location transmitter, or ELT, had fallen from its mounting inside the tail boom, but the red light flashing on its surface meant that it was still functioning.

 

When the main body of the chopper plowed nose-first into a slide across the ground, driven by the massive force of its downward speed and gravity, the pair of spindly steel landing skids snapped clean off the fuselage and the nose section was cushioned to a final stop by digging into a sand dune, completely burying the chin gun and FLIR sensor turret under the gritty material.

 

Flint reached back into the cockpit to check his gunner out. Looking into the seat while perched precariously on the cockpit edge, he noticed that the foot wells in Wiley’s place had collapsed and were rippled with creases caused by the metal absorbing the movement of the chin gun turret back into the fuselage and foremost bulkhead. Sergeant Wiley’s space had taken much more of the brunt of the nose-down impact than his own.

 

Flint’s hand snaked down to Sergeant Wiley’s wrist to feel for the gunner’s pulse, which was weak and thready. But the man was breathing, which was a good sign. Gently removing the flight helmet, Flint noticed a trickle of blood running down from Sergeant Wiley’s forehead, probably from where his head and neck flopped forward and smashed into the wrecked gunnery displays during the impact. Luckily, the padded, hard plastic helmet had softened the blow.

 

Sergeant Wiley finally began to stir from unconsciousness when Flint pressed a mesh compress against the forehead laceration. The young Green Shirt looked up at his pilot with a pair of scared eyes.

 

“Flint, sir,” Wiley said weakly. “I can’t seem to feel my legs. I think they might be broken.”

 

Flint’s expression fell when he heard Wiley describe what he felt. “I can’t tell from here if you’ve got any breaks, kid,” Flint replied. “But if you can’t feel your legs then you may really have a lower back injury.” The two men went through a cursory test to see if Wiley could move his arms and legs, and the situation was just as Flint feared. Wiley’s arms were fine, but weak, and his legs were no good at all, which meant he had been the unfortunate victim of a spinal injury sustained in the crash.

 

Flint reached into the cockpit to unlatch Sergeant Wiley’s safety harness. “Try to help me get you up and out of there, kid. I promise that you’ll be taken care of as soon as our buddies come over and pick us up.”

 

Wincing in pain from the spinal damage, but stoically resisting the urge to scream out, Wiley used his arms to lift himself out of his chair until Flint could wrap his own arms around the gunner and pull him from the cockpit. Despite the pain, Wiley did all he could to maneuver his body into Flint’s waiting arms, and then the pilot finally set his gunner down in a flat, laying position on the sand, several meters from the fuselage.

 

“Just rest right here, kid,” Flint whispered, balling up his MA-1 cotton flight jacket for Wiley to use for a pillow. He then moved to a hinged panel built into the side of the Dragonfly’s fuselage.

 

The Warrant Officer withdrew two sets of survival gear that were stored inside the panel, along with a pair of 45-caliber automatics and magazines of ammunition. Loading the pistols and stuffing the extra ammo into a pocket of his flight suit, Flint pulled out one of the two survival radios that was also stashed in the cubbyhole, checked the Ni-Cad battery, and then turned it on. He decided to try a burst transmission on the Guard channel to try to reach the rest of Bloodhound Flight, while keeping his more valuable TDC communications unit safely tucked away in case they were captured.

 

“You should leave me here with the wreckage, sir,” Sergeant Wiley said weakly. “You take cover and call down a dustoff from the flight.”

 

“We’re in this together, kid,” Flint replied, cocking his head as the sound of revving engines carried across the rolling features of the desert and powerful headlight beams moved towards the crash site. He pressed on the survival radio’s transmit button once more to send off another message to their teammates. “Bloodhound Lead to any Joe elements. We’re down in the dirt with a dead bird. Pilot okay, gunner badly injured. We need a dustoff, double pronto! The ELT is blinking! Home in on our signals!”

 

***

 

“All of you, stay sharp, those Cobra Stuns are close,” Windmill said, addressing his Nighthawk crewmen as the MH-60K’s powerful infrared spotlight probed the darkness ahead of the SPECOPS chopper. “I hope we beat ‘em to the crash site and they don’t catch us on the ground.”

 

For stealth, the IR spotlight didn’t project a beam of white light in the visible spectrum; rather, it used radiant energy to illuminate the ground when the viewer wore night-vision goggles, and the effect would be the same as a normal spotlight to the naked eye. Windmill’s copilot, a Green Shirt warrant officer named Flanagan, peered down at the desert floor with the night vision goggles linked to an image intensifier, which allowed him to follow the smallest of details along the surface. Windmill used a different setting on his night vision goggles to help him keep the chopper flying steady in the darkness.

 

“Windmill!” WO-2 Flanagan called out excitedly. “I see pieces of debris and wreckage at twelve o’clock low! The crew chief has a lock on the bird’s ELT transponder, and he just picked up a low-power tracer signal from an AN/PRC-10 aircrew survival radio just ahead!”

 

“Great job, Flanagan,” Windmill replied, pulling the Nighthawk into a bank around the crash site, where Flint was waving at the helicopter. “I’m pointing us towards a flat spot for our LZ...”

 

Before Windmill could finish, the crew chief, who was looking out one of the side windows, reported that the Cobra Stun detachment had reached the cockpit section and was surrounding it from many directions. He also passed along that Cobra troops were already dismounting.

 

“Lock and load door guns! I want to try a hot landing!” Windmill ordered, as Flanagan grabbed onto his cyclic and continued the banking turn that the pilot had begun. Windmill killed the power on the IR spotlight while the Nighthawk’s door gunners brought their M-134 mini-guns to bear on the enemy troops.

 

***

 

The platoon-equivalent unit of Cobra Stuns squealed to a stop and a handful of Motor-Vipers leaped out of their seats and onto the sand. They cautiously trained their AKSU sub-machineguns at Flint and Sergeant Wiley. Major Bludd leaped down form his place in the command Stun, leveling a vz-61 “Skorpion” machine pistol at the helicopter crew.

 

“There’s nowhere to run, Joes,” Bludd said with a sneer. “Drop your weapons and surrender quietly if you want to stay alive.”

 

Flint looked up in the sky, unable to see the black shape of Windmill’s Nighthawk but able to hear the whup-whup-whup sound of its rotors. He then turned his eyes down to Sergeant Wiley, who was mouthing the words “leave me behind”. His hands still shook a little, each one holding onto a locked and loaded Heckler and Koch USP automatic. In a split second, Flint had to weigh his options. Snapping his hands up into a shooting position and thumbing off the safeties on the pistols, he shouted out “Bludd! Not one step closer or I’ll fire!”

 

Windmill brought the Nighthawk’s nose down and swept in over the crash site, squeezing off a pair of Hydra-70 rockets at the ring of parked Stuns. The whoosh of the rockets drove the dismounted soldiers into cover or down to the ground. Both of the warheads found good targets, blowing a pair of Stuns sky high and throwing the corpses of incinerated crewmen across the desert floor.

 

Major Bludd covered his head and shouted for his troops to stand their ground. “FLAK-Vipers! Engage that fucking chopper! Use the gun barbettes on the Stuns!” Then he turned to the dismounted troops. “Vipers! Snap to! Take the flight crew into custody now!”

 

The FLAK-Vipers scrambled to launch their SA-7 “Strela” missiles while Motor-Vipers in the remaining Stuns aimed their guns skyward and sprayed gun fire in every direction, using crisscrossing patterns over the crash site to trap the MH-60K.

 

“SAM launch! Rear aspect!” the copilot yelled, cranking up the “disco ball” IR suppression system to its maximum output. A stream of white phosphorus flares were ejected from ports in the MH-60K’s tail boom while Windmill steered clear of the Cobra detachment’s crossfire. The volley of SA-7’s completely missed the Nighthawk as Windmill brought the helicopter around. The starboard side M-134 mini-gun buzzed angrily, hurling deadly tracers at the Cobra gunners and FLAK-Vipers on the ground.

 

“Your friends can’t land while my troops have you surrounded, Flint,” Major Bludd said. “Give it up. Drop the weapons and turn over your survival radio. My men will not harm you.”

 

“Promises, promises,” Flint mumbled while keeping the pistols trained at Major Bludd’s head. He looked down at Sergeant Wiley, who was slipping back and forth into unconsciousness. “My gunner is badly wounded, Bludd. If I give myself up, will you arrange medical care for him?”

 

“We’re not uncivilized men, Flint,” Bludd replied. “Your man will not suffer; I give you my word.”

 

“Alright, then,” Flint said, lowering his hands and dropping the pistols to the ground. He fished out the AN/PRC-10 radio out of his flight suit pocket and held it up for the Motor-Vipers to see.

 

As two Motor-Vipers brought a stretcher over to Sergeant Wiley and rolled his body onto it, Major Bludd approached Flint. “Ah, good, you’re being sensible, Flint. And capturing your radio frequencies has become an unexpected plus.”

 

Bludd turned to summon another Viper with a pair of handcuffs to secure Flint when the warrant officer swung the survival radio around, smashing it into the side of Major Bludd’s head. With his free hand, Flint snatched a fragmentation hand grenade from Bludd’s bandoleer and plucked out the pin.

 

In rapid succession, Flint threw the smashed survival radio at the Dragonfly cockpit and then side-lobbed the cooking hand grenade at the fuselage. He dropped to his knees to recover his pistols as Major Bludd twisted around with his machine pistol. Diving to the ground, Flint shouted “Cover!” as an explosion ripped through the crash site, decimating the Dragonfly’s cockpit and the sensitive avionics and communications gear inside.

 

The concussion of the blast disoriented Flint for the precious seconds he needed to recover his pistols. Instead of grabbing onto one of the weapons, he absorbed a swift kick in the ribs from Major Bludd’s boot, and when he turned up his head, Bludd had the vz-61 machine pistol pointed right between his eyes.

 

“Bad move, mother fucker,” Bludd said angrily, staggering to his feet.

 

***

 

“Windmill! Another missile volley is coming up!” Flanagan shouted, spotting several streaks of orange tail fire rising up from the Stuns. “We’re dead meat up here if we try to stick around!”

 

One of the MH-60K’s aerial gunners shouted over to the cockpit after a blast shook the airframe of the Nighthawk from below. “Windmill! The Dragonfly’s been blown to Hell!”

 

Windmill craned his neck to focus on the glow of the explosion, quickly flipping his NVG’s out of the way to prevent being blinded by the light-collecting device. “Do you see any movement down there, gunner?” the pilot asked.

 

The gunner averted his eyes from the light of the grenade blast and then stared through his M-134 aiming scope at the bodies around the wreckage. Some were lying still, even though there was some very slow, hardly discernable movement on the ground as the survivors recovered. “No movement, pilot!” the gunner replied. “No movement at all!”

 

“That tears it!” Windmill yelled. “Launch flares and countermeasures! Gunners, put those fucking FLAK-Vipers’ heads in the sand! We’ve got to bug out, or else Flint and his gunner won’t be the only casualties of this op! Flanagan, call in a flash spot report to Helmsman Six and then get Lift-Ticket on the line! Tell ‘em to prepare to move out!”

 

As Windmill retreated, the throbbing drumbeats of the MH-60K DAP rotors faded and then disappeared into the night.

 

Flint rose from a prone position near the flaming wreckage onto his hands and knees, just in time to watch Major Bludd kick his pistols away and a Motor-Viper tackled the Joe into the sand to handcuff him. The two men hooked their arms under Flint’s, and brought him to his feet, struggling and kicking.

 

“Your comrades have left you,” Bludd said, holstering his machine pistol. “Now, you’re all ours.” Releasing Flint to the Motor-Viper, he walked over to the stretcher where Sergeant Wiley was laying, and with a wave of his hand, bade the pair of Motor-Viper litter bearers to stand clear.

 

Sergeant Wiley was still cringing in pain from the back and leg injuries, not to mention having been dropped by the Motor-Vipers when the grenade went off in the Dragonfly and the litter bearers sought cover. Bludd smiled evilly at the Green Shirt, drawing his vz-61 and leveling the weapon at the center of Sergeant Wiley’s forehead.

 

“Wait!” Flint shouted. “Damn you, Bludd! You promised that he wouldn’t be harmed if I surrendered! You have me! Don’t do it!”

 

The click of the safety catch coming off of Major Bludd’s machine pistol was deafening to Flint. “You’re mistaken, Flint. I said that he wouldn’t suffer... much. You made a bad choice, and now this sergeant will be made an example of what happens when you fuck with me.”

 

As the two Motor-Vipers detailed as litter bearers moved to take hold of Flint, Bludd looked into Sergeant Wiley’s eyes. The Green Shirt stoically stared right back, looking down the barrel of Bludd’s weapon and bravely defying the Cobra mercenary to do his worst. Wiley drew in what would be his last breath, spat a wad of saliva at Major Bludd, and then shouted “YO, JOE!” as Bludd pulled the trigger, putting a stream of three point-blank rounds into the helicopter gunner’s head, disintegrating his flesh, skull and brains.

 

“NO!” Flint screamed, thrusting out his elbows to wrest his arms from the grasp of his captors. Lowering a shoulder into a football stance, he shoved the third guard to the ground with a full-body check that rivaled the best hockey players in the NHL with its ferocity. Flint charged at Major Bludd, raising his cuffed hands into the air.

 

“You fucking Cobras!” Flint shouted angrily, throwing his cuffed hands over the major’s head. Using the chain of the handcuffs, he pulled the metal tightly around Bludd’s neck in order to strangle the officer.

 

“Vipers!” Bludd spat out, trying to regain his composure and bringing his hands protectively up to his neck. “Get this lout off of me!”

 

Flint hung on tenaciously, angrily repeating “I’ll kill you, Bludd! I’ll kill you!” over and over, until the butt of a Viper’s rifle struck him in the back of the head. Both men fell once again to the ground.

 

“American bastard,” Bludd said after extricating himself and spitting on Flint’s unconscious form. “Take him away.”


	20. Into The Valley...

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Seventeen

Into the Valley...

 

***

 

Southeast of Camp Al-Shu’a

Landing Zone “Ugly”

25 July, 2002

2310 hours, local time

 

“Incoming!” Bazooka shouted, ducking his head behind a few inches of sand while a rocket from one of the Stinger jeeps sailed overhead. The weapon buried itself, without exploding, into one of the sand dunes between the ground pounders’ positions and the landing zone proper, where Lift-Ticket and Downwash’s crews were keeping the large CH-53C Jolly Greens ready for immediate takeoff. “Phew! That one was a dud! Get ready, guys! We’re inside their engagement envelope!”

 

Pinpricks of light from the Stingers’ ‘blackout’ headlamps lanced into the night sky as the vehicles crossed over a line of tall sand dunes from the north. The enemy vehicles were still strung out in a long column, and only the lead vehicle had taken the opportunity to use a rocket to get a fix on the Joes’ landing zone and defensive positions.

 

“Weapons up, all positions!” Claymore called out over his TDC, set up to broadcast on a ‘platoon command net’ to each fire team leader. “Engage the enemy vehicles at maximum range!”

 

The Joes, spread out in pairs and lying prone in their hastily scratched-out holes, leveled their weapons at the approaching enemy column. Bazooka, Salvo, Roughneck and Back-Blast were staring into MIRA night aiming systems attached to sophisticated MILAN anti-armor missile launchers that each man had resting on the sand. The other Joe fire team members kept tubes of M-84 and LAAW lightweight rockets handy for when the real shooting started.

 

“I’ve got the lead vehicle!” Roughneck shouted into a headset mike he had plugged into his TDC. “Back blast area clear! Fire in the hole!”

 

A long streak of orange fire shot out from the Joes’ skirmish line and blasted the leading Stinger jeep to pieces. The high-explosive, armor piercing warhead on the MILAN made short work of the soft-skin patrol jeep, throwing hot and molten debris everywhere. The bodies of the driver and passengers were cast in all directions, instantly flash-burned beyond recognition.

 

“Range is seven hundred meters, and they’re halting!” Sneak Peek shouted across the few yards separating his foxhole from Walkabout’s. “Cobra Vipers are dismounting and it looks like they may be forming an assault line! We have to break their lead element before they get spread out and bypass our defense!”

 

The big Australian leveled one of the M-202 quad rocket launchers onto his shoulder, and worked his night vision goggles until he could see the lead vehicles that stopped around Roughneck’s handiwork. “Seven hundred meters, eh?” Walkabout said, flipping the safety off his trigger assembly. “Aye, mate. We’ll surely break those bastards’ asses now!”

 

“All teams, MILAN and LAAW weapons up!” Claymore ordered from the platoon command post, while Short-Fuse prepared a star shell to fire from his portable 60mm commando mortar. “Stand by for star shell illumination!”

 

“Reload me!” Roughneck called to Muskrat, who was slinging two additional MILAN missiles in their pre-packaged tubes. Muskrat humped over to Roughneck’s foxhole and popped off the spent missile canister, quickly replacing it with one of his fresh loads.

 

“Locked and loaded, Roughneck!” Muskrat replied, clapping Roughneck on the shoulder. Pulling back the charging handle on his M-16A2 assault rifle, Muskrat worked himself into the sand so he could cover the missileer’s position. “Give ‘em hell!”

 

“Armored vehicles spotted to the northwest!” Recondo called into his TDC microphone, remembering the Russian-designed, boxy shapes from one of the many Army recognition guides he’d studied over the years. “They’re Iraqi BRDM-2’s, eight hundred and fifty meters out, and closing fast! It looks like they mean to roll over or outflank us at top speed! Back-Blast! Engage the lead armored car and knock it off my stretch of desert!”

 

“All elements hold your fire!” Claymore shouted into his TDC from the command post. “Hold fire until the star shells light up the targets! Recondo, hold your fire for fifteen more seconds!”

 

Red-orange flashes popped in the distance as the Iraqi Army BRDM-2 scout cars opened fire from beyond their best range with their roof-mounted, 12.7-millimeter machine gun turrets. It was all too apparent that the frightened soldiers in the vehicles were conducting a ‘reconnaissance by fire’ and trying to flush out the hidden Joe positions by getting them to fire back at the vehicles while they were still far enough away to react to a LAAW rocket shot, and the Stingers could launch their short-range missiles at the thermal launch “telltales” that would show up at the Joe positions after they fired.

 

“Short-Fuse,” Claymore ordered, peering into his night vision binoculars. “You shoot your star shell on bearing zero-one-zero, over the Stinger jeeps. Downtown, you have the BRDM’s, bearing three-four-five, eight hundred fifty meters and closing. The armored cars will be on top of Recondo’s fire team in two minutes or less if they maintain that full speed cavalry charge of theirs.”

 

Claymore dropped his binoculars and they fell against his chest when the leather strap around his neck came taut, while he raised an arm to signal the mortar men to fire. “Let’s make the enemy think we’ve got an arsenal out here! Fire star shells!”

 

Two reports echoed across the Joe battle line when Short-Fuse and Downtown fired their illumination rounds. The star shells burst over the enemy vehicles, bathing them in a blue-white light as the chemical components of the mortar rounds burned brightly overhead.

 

“We make our stand, here!” Claymore shouted into his TDC. “Fire at will! Engage the enemy vehicles! YO, JOE!”

 

***

 

Meanwhile, aboard Bloodhound Three, Windmill’s Sikorsky MH-60K DAP...

 

“How are we doing, Flanagan?” Windmill asked, as he flew back towards LZ Ugly on what he estimated was the reciprocal course. “Any signs of them?”

 

“I see sporadic flashes at one o’clock low – probably our boys and their MILAN firing posts,” Flanagan responded. “There are two star shells burning at eleven o’clock, and I can see silhouettes of enemy vehicles.”

 

“Good, we’ve found them,” Windmill said, activating his radio. “Lift-Ticket, this is Windmill. We’re back over LZ Ugly and ready to provide cover fire for a tactical withdrawal!”

 

“We’ve got a new problem, Windmill,” WO-2 Flanagan interrupted, pointing to one of the Nighthawk’s fuel gauges. “In five minutes or so, we’re going to run out of loiter time and have to turn back to base with our ten-minute reserve to spare. If we go any longer, we’ll be burnin’ fumes before we get wheels-down, or we’ll be putting this pig on the deck someplace north of Kuwait City International Airport and hoping the locals are still friendly!”

 

“Damn!” Windmill cursed, tapping the gauges’ glass surface with his finger to see if they were stuck somehow. “No matter. We wait until our buddies are off the ground; we’re their only cover up here! Set the dashboard clock for thirteen minutes. That’ll give us two minutes’ reserve for landing and taxi at Hafr-al-Batin. I’d better warn Lift-Ticket about our go-juice state.”

 

WO-2 Flanagan reached for a large-display digital clock that was mounted to the Nighthawk’s control panel, setting it to the thirteen minutes Windmill indicated. Normally used for “dead reckoning” navigation, the clock wasn’t an integral part of American flying machines until the recent years. It had been included as a matter of pressure from old-timer aviators who taught the ins and outs of the most difficult special operations flying, such as in pitch blackness or in inclement weather, where looking for landmarks would prove more dangerous than simply measuring speed and bearing on a map.

 

“Thirteen minutes of loiter on the clock, Windmill,” Flanagan said, returning his hands to the cyclic and collective sticks at his station. “At least we don’t have to use an annoying egg timer to tell us when we’re running out of mission gas.”

 

“Windmill to Lift-Ticket, do you copy?” Windmill called on the radio, as he watched the battle developing outside his helicopter. He nosed the flying machine over into a dive and opened up on the back-lit Cobra equipment with the MH-60K’s fifty-caliber machine gun pods. At the same time, the door gunners sprayed any exposed dismounted troopers with their M-134 mini-guns to keep them from moving towards the Joes’ skirmish line.

 

“You’re calling about the fuel state, right, Windmill?” Lift-Ticket replied, in a voice that belied his own concern. “My copilot just gave me the skinny too. I’m ordering Claymore to pull everyone out right now. Just hold the Cobras off until they can withdraw.”

 

“Roger that, Bloodhound Six,” Windmill replied, turning the chopper into a flat bank and pulling out of the finished strafing run. “I have twelve minutes, ten seconds on my bingo clock. That’s all your ground pounders have to get clear before they lose my air cover!”

 

Lift-Ticket nodded in the cockpit of his Jolly Green. “We’re on a ten minute clock here, Windmill. I’m pulling the troops out!” The pilot motioned to his copilot and chief flight engineer to hurry through the take off checklist, while Lift-Ticket tuned in on Claymore’s platoon command net.

 

“Captain Claymore,” Lift-Ticket radioed. “We are critical on fuel and have to move out now! Windmill is going to provide strafing cover on the enemy line while you pull out! Have all elements fall back and collapse on the LZ! Take off is in nine minutes, no waiting!”

 

Claymore ducked his head as a missile from one of the Stinger jeeps exploded near the command post and showered sand over their position. He raised the TDC to his lips and acknowledged Lift-Ticket. “I copy that, Bloodhound. Pull out in nine mikes or we’re on our own.” Pressing a button on his TDC, he broadcast new orders to all the fire teams spread out on the skirmish line. “This is Claymore, calling all troops. Everyone fall back immediately for LZ Ugly. We have nine minutes before our bus leaves us behind!”

 

Recondo fired his M-16 rifle at the Iraqi BRDM-2 that was barreling forward towards his position. Back-Blast was only a few meters away, but the missile specialist had fired at the wrong armored car, blasting one to bits that was further away and already disabled by another team’s ATGM fire. Somehow, the crew of the lead BRDM had spotted the tail fire from Back-Blast’s MILAN launch and chose to charge the position with their machine gun turret blazing.

 

Sandstorm and Roadblock tried to use Roadblock’s cal-50 on the sloped armor of the vehicle’s nose, but the withering cover fire was unable to get the driver to change direction. Afraid of being overrun themselves, Sandstorm and Roadblock picked up their heavy machinegun and retreated to the LZ after their fire had proven ineffective.

 

“Back-Blast! Look out!” Recondo shouted, while the missile specialist struggled to fit a reload canister to his MILAN launcher assembly. He only had moments to react as the BRDM sped closer to the missileer’s shallow hole. As bullets from the enemy vehicle whizzed by at supersonic speeds or kicked up columns of sand as they fell short, Recondo rolled sideways out of his own hole and sprinted for Back-Blast, zigzagging to dodge the deadly tracers lighting up the sky.

 

Back-Blast glanced away from his launcher when he heard Recondo shout, and saw the white headlights of the BRDM bearing down on his position. Not one to be afraid, he figured he’d have enough time to reload the MILAN and snap off a shot before he became a road pizza. But the troubles with the reload canister blew his estimate of a safety margin.

 

Recondo reached Back-Blast’s foxhole just as the missileer was getting to his hands and knees from lying prone with the missile reload. Grabbing him by the waist, Recondo pulled Back-Blast out of the hole and the two men rolled along a shallow slope of sand just as the BRDM lurched into the vacated position. The MILAN launcher was crushed by the vehicle’s huge rubber tires with a bone-shattering crunch, and the armored car finally came to a stop.

 

“Come on!” Recondo whispered, dragging Back-Blast by a fistful of t-shirt fabric under the armored car, where the two soldiers laid flat beneath the boxy hull and high truck-like suspension. “They can’t see us down here without unbuttoning the hatches.”

 

Excited voices in Arabic chattered above the two Joes, as the three-man crew of the BRDM-2 unlocked their upper hatches and looked around for evidence of a crushed body from their wild charge, questioning why the rifle fire stopped so suddenly after they hit the missileer’s position.

 

“Shh. Get ready,” Recondo said, pulling out two high explosive grenades from his ammo bandoleer. Back-Blast did the same, and both men slung their assault rifles across their chests, in case they had to mop up the vehicle’s crew up close and personal.

 

The circular field of light from a civilian flashlight appeared at the rear of the enemy BRDM and played back and forth along the recon vehicle’s tire tracks. The owner of the light spotted the wreckage of the MILAN launcher, but couldn’t discern any footprints or tracks since the light evening breeze and his vehicle had thrown loose sand around the spot where they stopped.

 

A loud groan of metal scraping upon metal echoed under the BRDM hull, as one of the crewmen opened the scout car’s armored side door and stepped out into the desert. A pair of brown leather combat boots materialized on Recondo’s side, belonging to the scout car’s commander, who was also an Iraqi Army officer by the cut and quality of his fatigue uniform.

 

“Okay, this is it,” Recondo whispered to Back-Blast. “You roll left and I roll right. Throw your grenades into this shit box and run for the LZ. Ready?”

 

Back-Blast nodded, plucking out the pins on his grenades but holding the arming plungers tightly in place. The boots moved slowly away from the hull, as the BRDM commander walked out to inspect the crushed MILAN firing post.

 

Recondo and Back-Blast yelled, “YO, JOE!” simultaneously, as they rolled clear of the vehicle’s hull bottom. At point blank range, Recondo lobbed his grenades into the wide-open door the commander came out from, and on the other side, Back-Blast made a spectacular basketball lay-up to release his grenades into the driver’s hatch.

 

The BRDM commander was surprised by the American voices, and turned back to his vehicle, leveling the AKSU sub-machinegun that he carried. He fired off one short burst of 5.45mm ammo in Recondo’s direction, but the jungle trooper was faster. The Iraqi’s bullets clattered on the armored skin of the BRDM, while Recondo pointed his M-16 from around the right front corner of the vehicle, and felled the Iraqi second lieutenant with two well-placed shots to the head and center of his chest. The Joe jungle operator didn’t wait to see how well his shots hit the enemy soldier, instead turning on his heel instantly and running to meet up with Back-Blast.

 

Recondo and Back-Blast got about fifty or so yards away from the BRDM when the explosion of their four HE grenades rocked the ground, blowing the vehicle’s thin steel machinegun turret up into the air as the stored fuel and ammunition in the armored car cooked off. The two men picked each other up, took a quick look behind them for survivors, and then ran for the landing zone.

 

***

 

2318 hours, local time

 

The rattle of Windmill’s machine gun pods and angry buzz mini-guns sounded over and over, a cacophony of violent noises punctuated by the whooshes of Hydra-70 unguided rocket launches and the loud blasts of explosions on the ground. The sounds of the Nighthawk DAP strafing runs pulsated back and forth along the enemy line of advance under the background sounds of the high-pitched turbine engines and the throbbing of the MH-60K’s rotors in the night air.

 

The deadly symphony played out behind the running Joes as pairs of them arrived at the LZ, splitting up equally to board the CH-53C’s. The transport helicopter pilots had the rotors turning at full speed, and the loading ramp spotlights were obscured in swirls of sand and dust as the Joes shielded their faces to find the way aboard. Claymore had pulled up stakes from his command post and stayed outside the transports to guide each pair of Joes safely on board one of the whirlybirds. He wanted to make personally sure that everyone in his tiny command was accounted for.

 

Sandstorm and Roadblock waited near the edge of the LZ, just outside the kicked-up dust cloud the transports were making, until the dark shadows of Recondo and Back-Blast materialized into the light at the landing zone. Somewhere during the retreat, Back-Blast had tripped and sprained his ankle, and Recondo had the burly missileer supported by his shoulders as the pair struggled to get out of danger. Sandstorm and Roadblock took over moving Back-Blast to the chopper and Claymore put a supportive hand on Recondo’s shoulder, shouting “Great job, trooper” over the rotor noise as the last Joes boarded their ride home.

 

Windmill banked the MH-60K away from the kill zone he had established in front of the enemy column as the CH-53C’s lifted off at full power. All of the crewmen operating M-134 mini-guns fired at the speeding enemy vehicles from above as they burst into the flat area of the LZ, too late to stop the Joes’ evacuation.

 

“Windmill to Lift-Ticket,” the MH-60K DAP pilot called out. “That was one swell ‘get up and go’ you pulled off there! We’ve still got five minutes on my bingo fuel clock! I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything about getting to Flint.”

 

“Lift-Ticket copies, Windmill,” Lift-Ticket replied. “We’re pushing the limits here. Keep your fingers crossed and rub every rabbit’s foot you have on board. I hope we have the gas to get back into friendly territory. And don’t worry about Flint. He’s not that easy to kill. Tell your crew they did a fine job!”

 

***

 

Meanwhile, at the Dragonfly crash site:

 

Major Bludd walked around his Command Stun, stopping at the gun barbette where the Motor-Vipers had deposited the unconscious Flint for the ride back to Camp Al-Shu’a. The Cobra troopers were very cautious to secure Flint very well, using a heavy towing chain from the Stun’s standard equipment to tie him into his seat inside the barbette. The weight of the chain alone was enough to immobilize the Joe Warrant Officer, and the soldiers had wrapped it around the handcuffs he wore so that his range of motion was further restricted.

 

The Motor-Vipers had actually been quite thorough while preparing to move Flint. They had taken the time to lock the triggers for the twin machine gun in the barbette so that even if Flint could move his hands, there would be nothing he could do to endanger the column with their own weapons.

 

Bludd smiled with satisfaction at the job his men had done with Flint, and then moved to the other gun barbette to climb into it, waving for his driver to get the Stun started. The remnants of his pursuit platoon clambered onto the handful of surviving Stuns and the vehicles and tired Motor-Vipers moved away from the Dragonfly, lining up into a column as Bludd’s vehicle was pointed in the direction of the Stingers and BRDM-2’s that had halted at the vacant LZ Ugly.

 

After the Stuns had gotten moving, Major Bludd’s command radio chirped to indicate an incoming message. Taking a quick glance at the stirring form of Flint in the gun barbette next to him, the Major picked up his radio handset and responded. “This is Major Bludd. Talk to me, soldier.”

 

“Major, sir, we’ve reached the Joes’ landing zone,” replied the Motor-Viper second lieutenant who led the Stinger platoon. “We were unable to stop the Joes from leaving, and there’s no trace evidence around here that we’ve been able to scrounge up. We could wait until sunup and search the area in more detail. Also, sir, we took fairly significant losses. At least four Stingers were knocked out and inoperable. I have a couple that are close to red-line with heavy damage. Three of the BRDM’s were taken out, including their platoon commander’s mount. The fourth has a blown tire and some body damage, but may be repairable. We’ve lost at least sixteen men and have eight casualties that we’re trying to care for with the aid kits on board our vehicles.”

 

“Dammit,” Bludd cursed, mentally calculating that the desert chase had cost his garrison close to three-quarters of its quick reaction unit’s manpower and equipment strength, not to mention three of the four Iraqi armored reconnaissance vehicles that had joined up from their patrol route. “Hold position at the LZ and activate the homing beacon on one of your radio sets. The surviving Stuns will be there shortly. We also have a prisoner, so do what you can with your casualties. As soon as I arrive, we’re rolling back to base and sending a recovery company to come out and sweep the key areas of the engagement after daybreak. All of us are going to have questions to answer when I make my report on this pursuit.”

 

“Acknowledged, Major Bludd,” the second lieutenant replied, cringing at the thought that the surviving platoon commanders might be held responsible for the reaction unit’s failure to bottle up the escaping Joe infiltration team or to take the landing zone with their evacuation aircraft on the ground. Repercussions were often swift within Cobra; and with Major Bludd at the helm of the Camp Al-Shu’a Garrison, bullshit always rolled downhill. “We’ve got the homing beacon turned on, sir. See you soon.”

 

***

 

Hafr-al-Batin Air Base

26 July, 2002

0045 hours, local time

 

Joe Green Shirts scrambled around their section of the airfield, securing the recently arrived helicopters from Wild Bill’s section of Bloodhound Flight, using headlamps from parked AWE Strikers and personal flashlights. Bill had set the large hovercraft and its cargo slinging lines down at the end of an auxiliary runway before bringing the rented civilian Sky Crane onto a parking ramp near the Joes’ operations hangar. Heavily damaged, the Whale looked like a fish out of water after being delivered to the air base.

 

Duke brought his AWE Striker to a stop and parked it between the alert shack barracks and the operations hangar, watching the Sky Patrol troopers and helicopter pilots milling around the helicopters. He leaped out of his vehicle and ran to the parked choppers to find Tie-Down, Slingarms and Talon getting Falcon and Lady Jaye ready to unload into waiting ambulances.

 

“How are they, Skydive?” Duke asked the Sky Patrol platoon sergeant, who was standing with some of his teammates.

 

“The medics got them stabilized on the flight home, Duke,” Skydive reported. “But they’re going to need more than our band-aid troops can give ‘em.”

 

“Then snap to, troop!” Duke said. “We’ve got a surgical team under Doc’s command standing by at the base hospital over in KKMC. Get them on the road!”

 

Duke walked into the troop compartment of the CH-53C and looked Falcon in the eyes. They were glazed over from the sedative, and he was breathing through a low-pressure oxygen cannula fitted to his nostrils. Talon was holding onto his wrist and monitoring his pulse. Tie-Down and Slingarms took turns monitoring Lady Jaye, since she was more in danger of complications from her injuries and the trauma she experienced.

 

“You did a good job, bro,” Duke whispered into Falcon’s ear. Standing up next to Falcon’s litter, Duke walked back to the open cargo loading ramp and waved at the HMMWV ambulances. “C’mon, you flat feet! Roll those fuckin’ meat wagons over!”

 

As the ambulance attendants helped the Sky Patrol medics get Lady Jaye and Falcon into the ambulances, Duke pulled Altitude aside and the two men talked next to the hull of Updraft’s Dragonfly attack chopper.

 

“Did you hear any word from the Crazy Horse pickup mission, Altitude?” Duke asked in a whisper. “I’m wondering if something happened to Scarlett or anyone on the mission, for that matter.”

 

“We only caught snippets, Duke,” Altitude replied, stretching his arms and cradling his assault rifle in his arms. “I think Flint’s Dragonfly was shot down, and when they went wheels up outside of Baghdad at around twenty-three-thirty hours, they also reported one member of Crazy Horse was in Cobra hands. I guess the capture happened before we extracted the others though.”

 

“Did anyone broadcast who was actually caught?” Duke asked insistently, despite knowing the Joe radio protocol required folks not to name specific code names during mission situation reports, whenever possible.

 

“Sorry, Top,” Altitude replied. “They only mentioned Bloodhound Lead in the dirt, nothing else. No one said anything about the Crazy Horse call sign that was taken. I wish I could tell you more.”

 

“That’s okay, Altitude,” Duke said. “You and your platoon did a fine rescue op out there. Get your shit crawlers together for some hot chow. The spooks in the Intel Shop are gonna want to debrief you once they get Cutter and Falcon’s unit straightened out. And get your people off the tarmac. The other choppers should be showing up any time soon.”

 

“You got it, Top,” Altitude said, walking to the gaggle of Joes watching the HMMWV ambulances roaring off the tarmac with sirens wailing. “Let’s go, you mud-eaters! Top wants his tarmac cleared and he wants us telling the Intel hermits everything we know! Skydive, hat the platoon up and move ‘em out!”

 

The crowd of anxious Joes dispersed and many piled into several M-923 five-ton trucks that were bound for King Khalid Military City. Just as the trucks began to pull out, the steady throb of more helicopter turbines echoed over the horizon. Out of the shadows, three helicopters materialized and their pilots didn’t bother aiming the aircraft at the helicopter landing targets painted on the auxiliary runway. The three aircraft dropped out of the sky as quickly as possible and settled onto the ground. Almost immediately after the birds touched down, their turbine engines sputtered and went silent.

 

Tired Joes started to deplane from the Jolly Greens even while the rotors spun to a stop overhead. Duke leaped into his AWE Striker and drove out onto the service taxiway. He raced his small utility vehicle over to where the helicopters had set down with their cargoes.

 

Scarlett walked down the ramp of Lift-Ticket’s CH-53C, holding her M-4 carbine like she didn’t care about anything. The barrel of the weapon hung behind her towards the deck as she trudged along tiredly, holding the carbine loosely by its sling. Walkabout was right on Scarlett’s heels, trying his best to talk with her about the mission, and offered his help and support. She essentially ignored everyone around her, simply trudging across the landing field in whatever direction her feet would carry her.

 

Duke climbed out of his AWE Striker and spotted Scarlett walking towards the service taxiway. He ran to her and gave her a warm embrace, just out of the warm glow of the air base’s amber ground track guide lights.

 

“Shana, I’m glad you’re back,” Duke said, looking at the hollow expression in her eyes. “It’s so good to see you here safe... Red... Babe... What’s wrong?”

 

Scarlett suppressed a sob and some warmth returned to her eyes as she rested her head on Duke’s muscular chest. “Cobra got Crypto while we were inside the base. They got him right in front of me... and I left him behind! They also shot Flint’s Dragonfly down when he came to extract us. I don’t know what happened to him and his aerial gunner.”

 

“We’ll worry about it later, Red,” Duke said, giving Scarlett a peck on the cheek and then wrapping his arm around her waist to support her. “All of you are going to get some rest, chow down, and reunite with the others. The spook shop will debrief you after breakfast, and General Tomahawk will come up with a plan for us to find evidence of Crypto and Flint and his co-pilot’s whereabouts. You and I also need to visit Falcon and Lady Jaye in the base hospital. If it helps any, I missed you the whole time you were gone.”

 

Scarlett gripped onto Duke’s BDU over shirt tightly when she felt him give her a tight, soul hug. “I missed you too, Duke,” she said slowly. Scarlett took fistfuls of fabric into her hands and tenaciously kept herself from letting go of Duke as they moved slowly away from the helicopters’ landing site. When they reached Duke’s parked AWE Striker, Scarlett finally relaxed to climb into the passenger seat as Duke started the vehicle up and turned it towards the Joes’ aircraft hangar and King Khalid Military City beyond.

 

***

 

Saddam Military Prison

Section Seven

0730 hours, local time

 

Crypto stirred out of unconsciousness, still groggy from the sedative that had been administered by the Cobra Medi-Viper upon his arrival at the prison complex. His head swam and no amount of blinking could clear the haziness in both of his eyes. The sedative drug had chemically cut off parts of his brain that controlled his voluntary motor functions, so his arms and legs felt like lead as he tried to test his range of movement.

 

It had taken almost an hour - although Crypto didn’t have much of a grasp on the actual amount of time that had passed - before his hands and extremities felt anywhere near normal. He brought a hand up to his eyes, and fortunately they hadn't been bound or restrained. Groping gently across his skin, his fingers came across plastic band-aids that had been applied to his cuts and bruises, and further checking confirmed that his flesh was still tender and uncomfortable from the swollen welts on his face.

 

Reaching the bridge of his nose, he thought he felt a sharp pain and the discomfort associated with broken cartilage and bone inside. A gentle squeeze didn't reveal any misplaced fragments or dislocated parts, but the discomfort continued. After a few moments of drawing long, deep breaths through his nose, he realized that the Medi-Viper had inserted a nasal cannula into his nostrils and taped it into place, to keep him breathing while he was knocked out. His sense of smell registered the sweetish scent of the pure oxygen flowing through the plastic tubing with each refreshing breath.

 

Finally touching his eyes, he felt the rough cotton of gauze pads and smooth medical tape that were covering them. Finding a corner of the tape, he ripped the gauze free and pinched his eyes shut as the light in the prison cell hit them with full intensity.

 

A soft, female touch shifted Crypto's hand back down to his side and took away the torn gauze bandages. "So, you're finally awake," the female Medi-Viper said, filling Crypto's vision with her masked face when his eyes cleared. She examined his eyes for a moment with a small penlight and when she was satisfied that they were normal, she leaned back slightly and spoke once more in her Irish accented voice. "Good. I've treated your injuries and you're currently in a medical isolation cell apart from the main wings of the prison. There are guards outside. If you keep your hands to yourself, and don't try to inflict any bodily harm upon me, I could be your best friend in this dismal place. If not, the guys outside will break you and I will conveniently run out of medical supplies to care for your dying body. You got it?"

 

Crypto scanned the room for potential weapons, but none were apparently handy. "I don't have much of a choice right now," Crypto mumbled. "But if you want to be my best friend, why don't you take the lumps for me when your Crimson Guard boss Deming tries to grind me for information?"

 

The Medi-Viper removed her surgical mask to reveal the face of a beautiful young redhead, whose face matched her Irish accent to a tee. "That's hardly the friendship I meant, soldier. And I'll have you know that I kin take care o' myself." She gently patted Crypto's hand, which he had formed into a tight fist, and then turned to look for a package of cotton balls and antiseptic treatments.

 

"I used ta treat the Provisional IRA boyos," the Medi-Viper continued, with her back turned to Crypto. "... Who got caught in their own bombings against the Brits in the streets of Belfast, and the ones who were being chased about by the Ulster Defense Regiment patsies. We young loyalists often dragged the fighters off the streets and into our own basements until t'was safe to bring them to the local IRA doctors for treatment. The cheeky Tommies decided ta go a'huntin' for the civilians who aided the PIRA boyos eventually, fer harborin' criminals - or so they said.”

 

The Medi-Viper sighed before continuing her story. “I had to escape Northern Ireland for a haunt in Cobra when the fuckin' British bastards burned down a whole slum neighborhood outside the city and my damn home was in among 'em. And I've been living a tough life among tough people ever since."

 

The Medi-Viper squirted out some liquid from a small syringe and set it down on a stainless steel work tray. She also found her cotton balls and antiseptic, and prepared some wet cotton to dab at Crypto's facial welts. Seeing Crypto's eyes following her every move, the Viper brandished a sharpened scalpel in front of his face. "I'm more than prepared to protect myself from the likes of you."

 

"I read you. You won't get any trouble out of me - for now." Crypto leaned back and took further stock of his surroundings.

 

The intelligence reports coming out of the CIA's networks in Iraq had told of rumors concerning Section Seven, a specialized torture facility that the more sadistic members of the Saddam regime used to have a perverse sort of fun with political prisoners. Much of the talk had centered on tales of nocturnal kidnappings or arrests of political opponents by loyalist members of the Iraqi Secret Police. They would be brought alive into Section Seven for "political re-education" and never come out again, without being shrouded in black plastic body bags. The rumors and the activities surrounding Section Seven had been written up by the analysts as a credible fact, a means of torture that ensured the loyalty of certain regime functionaries that might have been rallied to support a different leader at the top of Saddam's heap.

 

Crypto guessed initially that he was being treated in the prison's general population medical ward, until he noticed the small size of the enclosed space where the Medi-Viper worked on him. He was really in one of the interrogation cells of Section Seven, which Cobra had converted into a combination medical isolation cell and questioning room. The walls were made of roughly-cut stone painted with a simple, diluted white wash. There were no windows or bars cut into the walls around the cell, and a solid steel door separated it from the hallway.

 

The Medi-Viper drew her antiseptic swabs across Crypto's welts, and he felt the chemicals sting smaller, unprotected cuts in his skin. "You're a lucky man," the Medi-Viper added. "The troopers kicked the crap out of you, but the worst you've gotten is a couple of bruised ribs. Nothing's broken, an' you 'ave no signs of hematoma or major internal bleeding. I think you can begin your questioning as early as the morrow."

 

"You're just a fountain of good news, buddy," Crypto said, his voice dripping with sarcasm on the reference to the Medi-Viper being his best friend. "Why don't you go tell that smug bitch boss of yours the good news?" The officer snarled as an excuse to raise his head and look for an escape opportunity. "I'm just going to hang 'round here and brush up on my name, rank, serial number and branch of service for my session with Miss Deming."

 

The Medi-Viper emotionlessly drew a fingernail across Crypto's cheek, aggravating some of the swollen welts that he had gotten at Camp al-Shu'a, and causing his facial muscles to twitch from the contact. "I'd advise you to talk to us and give Lieutenant Deming what she wants ta know. It will save you a helluva lot of pain."

 

"Don't take offense, buddy," Crypto replied. "But my silence is golden, pain or no pain." He quietly began whispering the first few words of the United States Serviceman's Code of Conduct. "I am an American serviceman, fighting for my country..."

 

"Hey, boyo, have it your way," the Medi-Viper said, moving for the steel door to knock on it. "Siegie Lieutenant Deming will surely be seeing you before the Baroness’ arrival to take over your sessions. Have fun getting that pretty face of yours beaten up again." The guards let the Medi-Viper out and then locked the steel door shut, and Crypto was alone for the first time since his capture.

 

***

 

King Khalid Military City, Saudi Arabia

American Sector, Base Hospital

0900 hours, local time

 

Duke and Scarlett held hands as they sat in the drab, white-painted surgical waiting room of the small base hospital. Both of them had serious and concerned looks fixed on their faces while they eagerly anticipated getting some news concerning Falcon and Lady Jaye’s injuries.

 

Aside from the two Joes in the waiting room, Doc had gone in with both patients after they arrived, hand carrying their confidential medical records from the Joes’ archives and assisting the men and women of the Army Reserve’s 3227th Combat Trauma Surgical Team as the doctors and medical specialists of the shock trauma unit worked to treat the bullet wounds and subsequent bleeding injuries that caused Falcon and Lady Jaye to have to fight to heal.

 

“How are you holding up, Red?” Duke asked, studying the face of his teammate and girlfriend as she wrestled slowly with the wrapper of a Snickers candy bar. “I know there’s a lot on your mind.”

 

Scarlett sucked in a breath while finally tearing open the Snickers and made a sad, sniffling sound. “I feel responsible for all of this debacle, Duke. Crypto... Crypto was captured by the enemy right in front of me. I could have killed at least some of the Vipers that had him... I could’ve given him a fighting chance to get to me and we would both be here now.” She tried to take a bite out of the bar but somehow found the candy unpalatable and shoved it into one of Duke’s hands.

 

“And Flint...” Scarlett began to form tears in both eyes while Duke set down the Snickers and reached for a box of Kleenex tissues that was sitting close at hand. He gently dabbed at her eyes while she kept pouring out her sadness to him. “We should’ve fought our way to Flint’s crash site and extracted his chopper crew together, instead of pulling out when Windmill couldn’t get the job done alone! I told Lift-Ticket to take us over there, and we didn’t even try a second pickup!”

 

Duke knew that higher orders dictated the actions of the Bloodhound section’s pilots, and he himself had spoken to some of the rookies who were also feeling quite guilty at not sticking around to help their flight leader when he went down.

 

“Shana, honey, don’t put all the burden of this onto yourself,” Duke replied softly, remembering the details of the initial Crazy Horse mission debrief that had occurred with her and Walkabout as soon as their extraction choppers had set down at Hafr-al-Batin. “Look. They’re both officers, and they get paid to make the hard decisions to serve the greater good and get the mission accomplished.”

 

Duke’s statement only served to get Scarlett ready to burst. She so badly wanted to scream in frustration. But she found her solace in simply thumping Duke on the chest and turning away from him.

 

“Don’t patronize me with that bullshit about our sacrifices, Conrad,” she said with a sob. “How many sacrifices do we have to make for people we don’t see, or know? How many times do we have to see our buddies lying out on surgical tables and fighting for their lives, or worse, lying stone cold dead on a mortician’s slab? When do we get to be selfish and save our own asses for once?”

 

Scarlett’s cheeks turned a soft crimson as she struggled to keep her composure. “Flint and Crypto are as good as dead out there, and Vince, your own brother, and Alison almost bought it trying to get back here from a near-suicidal mission! Several other Joes got hurt along the way! Where will we get a break in all this?”

 

Duke kept silent, resting his hands on Scarlett’s shoulders and turning her around. She allowed him to hug her tightly, as she buried her face against Duke’s chest and her long, red mane cascaded over his battle dress utilities while she sobbed for her missing and wounded friends.

 

Both Duke and Scarlett looked up when Doc shoved aside a swinging hallway door and entered the waiting room. He had a pleased smile on his face when he selected an armchair to sit down in.

 

“Come on, Doc, out with the news,” Duke said insistently. “How are Falcon and Lady Jaye?”

 

“Great news,” Doc replied, taking off a surgical cap and balling it up in his hands. “The trauma surgeons successfully patched ‘em both up. Tracker and the Sky Patrol medics did a damn fine job of keeping them alive during the medevac. They’re both stable and conscious, and they should heal up fairly quickly.”

 

“Thank God,” Scarlett said, wiping her eyes free of tears with a tissue and cracking a smile. She unzipped a couple of inches of her black “Land Warrior” combat suit’s zipper so that she could relax and be more comfortable. “We’ve got some bad news for Lady Jaye. I’m sure she wouldn’t have found this out yet since it happened after she was injured. Flint’s down behind enemy lines. His Dragonfly crashed while extracting my mission team from Baghdad. He might even be...” The final word almost choked Scarlett before it came out. “Dead.”

 

Doc shook his head sadly, sympathizing with Scarlett at having to bear the bad news, and also feeling for Lady Jaye. “Why don’t you give her a day or two before you tell her the gory details? She’s very weak still, and we don’t want any risk of complications.”

 

“She’ll get awfully suspicious if Flint’s not the first face she sees sitting at her bedside after she’s just come out of surgery, Doc,” Scarlett surmised correctly. “She can’t be lied to about him.”

 

“If she asks, I could tell her that Flint is on a mission and is still downrange with no details,” Doc suggested. “That’s close enough to the truth.”

 

“Doc, I hope you’ll pardon me for saying this,” Duke said in his inimitable Top Sergeant’s way. “As a physician, you’re top notch. But when it comes down to bullshitting with a combat troop about bad news, you’re better off leaving the task to the experts. Scarlett and I will take care of talking to Falcon and especially Jaye concerning what’s gone on.”

 

“I won’t question your judgment, Duke,” Doc said, straightening his surgical scrubs and getting to his feet. “I’d better go visit our dispensary and see how Lifeline is doing with the other Joes who sustained minor injuries last night. I’ll be back to check in with Falcon and Lady Jaye periodically to monitor their progress.”

 

“Thanks, Doc,” Duke and Scarlett said in unison, as the physician made his way out of the base hospital. After a few moments of collecting their own thoughts, the couple got to their feet and started looking for the recovery ward so they could find Falcon and Lady Jaye.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, at the G.I. Joe Command Center:

 

“Come in, Swansong,” General Tomahawk said to the neatly-uniformed female Civil Affairs / Intelligence officer who had knocked on the jamb of his open office door. Swansong, an Air Force Major named Sara Levinson, strutted confidently into the office in her working dress uniform, wearing the lighter, sky-blue shaded blouse of the current standard with female necktie, a knee-length, un-pleated dress skirt in Air Force Blue, and black leather, low-heeled pumps. She took a chair after saluting the General and getting a nod in acknowledgement of her arrival.

 

“You called for me, sir?” Swansong asked in a quiet tone, smiling neutrally at her new commanding officer.

 

“Yes, I did,” Tomahawk replied. He appeared to be more engrossed in reading his reports that had been scattered across his steel desk than paying attention to Swansong’s arrival.

 

“The troop debriefings are proceeding well,” Major Levinson reported. “I expect everyone, other than Falcon and Lady Jaye and the Joes that went on sick call with Lifeline, to be back in the duty rotations by the end of the day.”

 

“That’s good work, Major,” Tomahawk said, bringing his eyes up to meet hers. “But that wasn’t what I needed to discuss with you.”

 

“Swansong,” the general continued. “I’m sure that you’re aware of the details of the situation reports and debrief of the Crazy Horse mission team to Camp Al-Shu’a.” Swansong nodded. “And you know also that Crypto, my staff S-2 officer, had been taken prisoner during that operation, along with Flint and a Green Shirt copilot when their attack helicopter was brought down.” Swansong nodded silently once more.

 

Tomahawk shifted in his seat and studied the expressionless face of Major Levinson while he chose his next statement. “I’m short my most trusted S-2 advisor and one of my veteran operational unit commanders. So, I have to rely upon you to fill Crypto’s shoes completely and keep the flow of information moving into my headquarters.”

 

“But only until Crypto’s return, right, General?” Swansong asked, hoping that Tomahawk hadn’t written off the two missing in action, ranking Joes quite yet.

 

The general sat up in his chair and took a long sip from a cup of steaming coffee he had at hand. His gaze soon returned to the Major’s eyes. “That’s correct, Major. Only until he returns.” He shuffled a few papers, including some handwritten notes, finally sliding a stack of manila folders across his desktop to her.

 

“Preparing a rescue op for Crypto, Flint and his copilot takes top priority over everything, Swansong,” Tomahawk said. “Otherwise, keep running the SCIF and your S-2 shop by the book. I want you to figure out if you can leverage the spy network established by that CIA agent Falcon’s “Hatchet” team evacuated to locate where our buddies are being held. And get your planners to work with Duke, Colonel Courage, Steeler and Major Storm to formulate a plan of action.”

 

The general took another sip of coffee and rubbed his tired eyes. “I know this is a bit much to take on, especially with the search for Glyph’s impostor going on in your work areas and Beach Head’s security lockdown. Not to mention you only arrived for duty last night from Dhahran. But as of now, you’re the ranking Intelligence staffer, and your last commander’s recommendations were signed off by Crypto without hesitation. I know you’ll be able to step up to the tasks at hand.”

 

“I’ll do my very best, General Tomahawk,” Swansong said, holding back a sigh. “I think I’ll go talk to Agent Guilford first, and then scan the G-2 reports from CENTCOM. And we’re all on the lookout for another appearance of the fake Glyph. The Intel shop won’t let you down, sir.” Swansong stood up to take her leave and saluted the General as he went back to his paperwork and private thoughts.

 

***

 

Cobra underground command post

Camp Al-Shu’a, outside Baghdad

0900 hours, local time

 

Flint curled up in a ball to protect his vital organs from being kicked by the Motor-Vipers that were moving him from the garrison on the surface into a storeroom situated in one of the subterranean levels of the secret command post that had recently been attacked by the Joes.

 

Because the permanent brig in one of the command building’s lowest sub-basements was still being designed, Major Bludd had decided to use the recently-finished storeroom as Flint’s temporary cage since it was still empty, had no windows and one doorway with strong, steel doors that were locked from the outside.

 

As the Motor-Vipers struck at Flint with their steel-toed combat boots, Flint’s defensive posture served also to protect his TDC communicator and its hiding place. He had surreptitiously tucked the small device against his groin prior to being subdued at the helicopter crash site, and clipped it to the inside of the waistband of his ‘PX Special’ Fruit of the Loom briefs.

 

After the ongoing struggle had lasted the entire distance the Motor-Vipers had to travel, Flint finally loosened up a bit to allow the guards to haul him to his feet. One of the Motor-Vipers unlocked the empty storeroom’s solid steel entry door, and the other extracted a key from one of his uniform’s pockets to unlock Flint’s handcuffs and leg irons, which had kept him effectively immobile.

 

“Get in that fuckin’ storeroom, G.I. Joe scum!” the Motor-Viper holding open the heavy door ordered, drawing his Cobra-issued automatic pistol and rapping the barrel on Flint’s shoulder as his partner roughly shoved the warrant officer forward.

 

Flint only had moments to act if he wanted to better his chances of escape. He noticed that although the storeroom was empty, one of the workmen that had been preparing the space had left a tool belt and a long wooden push broom right by the door, ostensibly to retrieve the items at some later point in time. Flint feigned a short stumble, dropping to the un-swept and dusty floor with a thud, keeping his feet in the doorway so the troopers couldn’t slam it behind him.

 

“Get the fuck in there!” the pistol-armed Motor-Viper shouted. “Stop wasting our time, you American shit-for-brains!”

 

Tucking his legs and feet underneath him, Flint sprang for the push broom, grabbing it with both hands and swinging the heavier end at the Motor-Viper who pushed him into the storeroom. The broad wooden brush head connected with the Viper’s jaw and hit with such force that the handle shaft snapped off, leaving a jagged, splintered end on the pole still in Flint’s hands. The Viper fell back into the hallway, momentarily stunned by the powerful hit.

 

With the pole, he lashed out at the armed Motor-Viper, driving the sharp end through his uniform and deep into his belly. The Viper grunted angrily and lashed out with his fists, having inadvertently tossed the pistol into the storeroom from the impact of Flint’s broom handle. When Flint tried to extract the handle from the Viper’s abdomen, he ended up pulling the trooper all the way into the storeroom, so he turned sideways and released the wooden pole, so that it and the enemy soldier would hit the ground.

 

Reaching for the tool belt, Flint’s groping fingers wrapped around a long-shafted electrician’s screwdriver, which he brandished defensively in front of his body. The still-angry Motor-Viper broke away much of the broom handle, and still bleeding from the gut wound, got back on his feet to exact some revenge upon Flint.

 

Flint deftly avoided the Motor-Viper’s meaty fist as it pounded through the air, just missing the side of his face by an inch. Striking out with the long screwdriver, Flint punched the stainless steel tool right into one of the Motor-Viper’s eye sockets, and the maimed enemy soldier collapsed into a heap, his hands desperately clutching at the screwdriver to yank it free from his eye.

 

The dazed Motor-Viper that Flint had hit with the broom’s brush head had finally regained some sense and was on his feet, staring in horror at what Flint had done to his partner. Composing himself quickly, he squared off in a boxing stance, with his left fist in a guarding position and the right poised to strike.

 

Flint panted for a moment from the struggle, and squared himself off, watching the enemy soldier intently, especially his eyes. When the soldier blinked, he essentially telegraphed that he was going into the attack. The Motor-Viper’s right fist jabbed forward in an attempt to straight-punch towards Flint’s face.

 

Flint rolled to his left, swinging his own fist in the opposite direction and catching the Motor-Viper square in the crotch. As the soldier doubled over in pain, Flint’s hands reached for the enemy's pistol belt and found the Motor-Viper's saw-toothed combat knife. Flint withdrew the knife in one fluid motion and twirled it in his palm, turning the blade towards the bottom of his hand.

 

When the Motor-Viper felt his pistol belt get lighter, he twisted his upper body to aim his fists at Flint again. But Flint was ready, stabbing behind him and upwards with his knife hand until the sharp blade cut through the fabric of the enemy's uniform and dug into his flesh. Since Flint's back was to the Motor-Viper, he had to move instinctively, drawing the knife perpendicular to the direction of his thrust, and cutting the soldier's guts out. The Motor-Viper could do nothing but scream in agonizing pain as his insides literally fell out in a bloody mess onto the floor and Flint scurried out of his reach.

 

Flint doubled back after a moment to finish the Motor-Viper off as his screams for help echoed through the subterranean hallways of the command center. He silently plodded up to the Cobra and slashed at the soldier's throat with the saw toothed side of the blade. The knife cut cleanly through the Motor-Viper's jugular vein and instantly filled his windpipe with blood, choking off his ability to make further sounds. The Motor-Viper’s partner encountered a similar fate at Flint’s hands, bleeding out with the screwdriver still embedded in his skull.

 

Shouts and footfalls echoed down the long hallways as other Cobra troopers responded to the screaming. Flint located the closest Motor-Viper's Colt Combat Commander .45-caliber automatic and stole every magazine he could find on the trooper's lifeless body. Flint barely had the space of several heartbeats to lock and load the pistol when he saw a patrol of Vipers enter the hallway from a distant junction. In one arcing motion, he dropped to one knee and brought the pistol up to firing position, cradled in both of his still-twitching hands.

 

POW! POW!

 

POW! POW!

 

As he had become accustomed to from training with ex-Delta Force operators like Crater, Flint cooked off four shots in double-tap pairs and in rapid succession, three of which hit one of the Vipers who was trying to press his body against the hallway’s concrete walls for cover. The soldier's forehead exploded as the first two rounds caught him in the face, and the third one, hitting his center of mass in the chest, took him down completely.

 

POW! POW!

 

The pistol barked twice more, bringing down another Viper as he tried to level his assault rifle in Flint's direction. The Viper howled in agony as his hand shot up to a gaping neck wound that was spurting a gusher of blood into the air like a fountain.

 

Flint was half crouched behind the eviscerated Motor-Viper’s writhing body, so the remaining two Vipers were in a quandary whether they should shoot at him and risk hitting their mortally wounded comrade. However, they didn’t take long to decide, as shots rang out from their AK-74 assault rifles.

 

Flint grabbed the Motor-Viper’s bandoleer, which had about a half-dozen grenades clipped to it, and ducked into the storeroom’s door alcove when the Vipers’ rifle fire chipped at the cement in the place he vacated a mere moment before. Exposing only one eye and the barrel of his pistol around the doorway corner, Flint fired off a couple more rounds to keep the Vipers at a safe distance, and ended up clipping one in the boot, who dropped to the ground with an angry shout, still firing away with his AK-74.

 

Knowing that the Vipers would eventually storm his position and call for reinforcements, Flint located the other Motor-Viper’s weapons and ammo, collecting it all and combining the usable stuff to store in the stolen bandoleer that he slung over his shoulder.

 

“Medics! Send down some fuckin’ medics!” the Viper who was hit in the foot yelled into a walkie-talkie. “The prisoner’s shooting at us!” His partner crouched next to him and occasionally fired a short burst of 5.45mm at the storeroom doorway, while trying to rip open a sterile first aid dressing with his teeth.

 

“Security troops are on the way, Viper,” an officer radioed from elsewhere in the command center. “Hold your position and keep the prisoner bottled up.”

 

“How the fuck do you expect me to do that?” the Viper groused. “Half my team is dead and the Motor-Viper that’s guarding the prisoner is lying in the corridor with his guts all over the floor!”

 

“More troops are on the way!” the officer insisted. “Quit your fucking whining, you coward, and don’t let the Joe escape!”

 

Flint tucked the second automatic into one of the deep cargo pockets in his flight suit and unclipped a grenade from the bandoleer. He pulled out the cotter pin with his thumb and tossed it aside, holding the spoon plunger tightly against the grenade’s casing. Leaning out into the corridor with his pistol in his right hand, he fired off two quick shots and then heaved the grenade at the two Vipers. “Heads down, scumbags!” Flint yelled angrily at the men as he ducked behind the steel door to safety.

 

“Jesus!” the wounded Viper yelled as he kicked his buddy out of the way and scrambled in the direction opposite the storeroom. His uninjured partner, annoyed at being knocked aside, turned to scramble away as well. When the grenade detonated, the concussion blast threw the Vipers almost twenty feet through the air, where they landed hard on the concrete floor.

 

Flint blinked his eyes, trying to see through the stinging smoke that resulted from the grenade’s detonation. He held his pistol out in front, supported by both hands, while he scanned the hall for threats.

 

The Vipers moaned and struggled to their knees as the ventilation fans sucked out the choking smoke and ashes from the grenade. And as soon as Flint saw them still moving, he fired quickly from behind them. Both enemy soldiers fell when the heavy .45-caliber bullets slammed through their bodies.

 

Gathering up one of the Vipers’ AK-74 rifles and a pouch full of ammunition, Flint thought to himself, “Now this is more like it... it’s time for some payback, Cobras!” Upon hearing the voices of additional troops working their way down the cross-passages, the Warrant Officer took to his feet and ran.

 

***

 

Several minutes later...

 

Flint climbed up the main ventilation shaft that led to the desert surface in order to avoid the Cobra reinforcements charging down every stairwell, securing every cross-passageway and crowding every elevator to get a piece of him. He could hear shouts and voices over other voices as teams of Vipers and Motor-Vipers converged on the spot where Flint had dealt out a hefty measure of death, having killed a total of nine security troopers and wounding three others (not counting the two dead Motor-Vipers in his guard detail) before silently disappearing into the air shafts.

 

Finally reaching the surface, Flint found a steel grating and peered outside. Despite the alert status in the command center, the pace of life in the hot desert sun didn’t seem all too urgent. Work crews trudged along at snail’s paces, while pairs of sentries were looking outside the garrison for trouble, not inside. Using the butt of one of his USP .45-caliber pistols, Flint smashed loose the cheap screws that held the grating in place, and leaped out onto the sand.

 

Flint didn’t expect to see a Cobra Stinger bearing down on him the moment he hit the ground. The driver was obviously surprised as well, as he slammed hard on his brakes and turned the steering wheel to avoid hitting the warrant officer. Flint recovered his senses before the Motor-Viper in the Stinger did. While the driver fumbled for his leather holster, which was jammed between his leg and the molded bucket seat he was sitting in, Flint raised both his pistols and fired a stream of bullets at him.

 

The Motor-Viper’s face was turned away from Flint and looking down when the first rounds struck the side of his face and left ear. The big, eleven-point-four-three millimeter slugs tore off the Viper’s left ear and smashed into his skull with brute kinetic force. Flint had covered the distance to the driver’s side of the Stinger just as his lethal bullets struck the Viper. Flint quickly reached into the vehicle and unsnapped the seatbelt, grabbing the lapel of the Motor-Viper’s uniform with both hands and hauling the soldier out of the 4x4 vehicle in one fluid motion and onto the ground.

 

“Thanks for the wheels, Sport,” Flint said, flashing his trademark lop-sided boyish grin at the mortally wounded Motor-Viper. Since the engine was still idling, Flint merely had to shift it into gear and gunned the accelerator to full power, squealing away in a cloud of dust.

 

Flint steered for the main gate, dodging a column of Stuns that were being repositioned in the garrison’s motor pool area. Some of the Vipers working the motor pool had caught onto Flint as he barreled by, and those that were armed fired off several rounds in his direction. It took only a few heartbeats for the garrison’s emergency klaxons to begin sounding.

 

Like an elite trooper on combat sleep, the base went from calm and serene to chaotic action. Vipers emerged from every structure between Flint and the main gate, armed to the teeth with AK-74 rifles, BG-1 grenade launchers and RPK-74 squad machine guns. And every SOB out there was gunning for the lone Joe as he tried to get away.

 

Keeping his right hand on the steering wheel, Flint reached his left out the driver’s side roll cage of the Stinger and fired off a few shots from his automatic pistol. He was able to hit and drive away a few Vipers, but most of them were trying to form a human roadblock and were determined to force him to stop with flesh and steel.

 

The Stinger jeep wasn’t built for protection; rather, it was made for speed and lightning fast attacks. Having been upgraded from its original version, some Stingers sported Kevlar armor sheets that could be folded over the roll cage to provide splinter and small arms protection for the crew. Not to mention the doubling of capabilities when its standard quad-missile armament was exchanged for stolen ADATS (Air Defense – Anti Tank System) missile technology and much lighter weapons.

 

Unfortunately for Flint, all desert troops were alike. The Kevlar crew armor kits added weight to the Stinger, significantly enough weight to bog the vehicle down while on desert patrol in shifting sand. So the local troops opted to leave the gear in the motor pool. Thus, Flint didn’t have much in the way of bullet resistance when the Vipers sprayed weapons fire at his purloined four-by-four.

 

However, Flint could give as well as he received. He had unslung an AK-74 that he snatched from one of the Vipers underground and it was sitting on the front passenger seat of the Stinger. He raised it and rested the assault rifle on the vehicle’s dashboard, firing at full auto into the gathering crowd of enemy troops.

 

Flint executed a few figure eight maneuvers in the wide-open marshalling area on the northwest side of the camp, to confuse and scare the Vipers into not forming their roadblock quite yet. With every swift turn of the wheel, a few of his 5.45mm AK rounds would strike a trooper or two, dropping them into the sand and dirt at their feet. When Flint’s maneuvers were effectively countered by a SAW-Viper chattering away with a heavy M-2HB .50-caliber machine gun from a distance, Flint decided to barrel through the path of least resistance. He spun the wheel once more and fought his way back on track towards the garrison’s main gate.

 

“It was fun while it lasted, chumps,” Flint thought, steering the Stinger to face the main gate, which was already being closed by the fire team of Vipers and SAW-Vipers that guarded it. The warrant officer reached for the thumb trigger for his Stinger’s missile launcher, which was mounted on the steering wheel under his right thumb. Clicking the button once, and cringing at the loud whoosh of the missile leaving the launch rail over his head, Flint sped up to follow the missile through the main gate.

 

“Holy shit! Missile incoming!” a SAW-Viper shouted, tossing his RPK-74 onto the ground and leaping for safety. The other Vipers in his fire team spread out for their own safety as the combination anti-aircraft and anti-armor missile blasted through the wooden shanty of a gate house and exploded against the cement supports for the gate, ripping the steel cross bar to shreds.

 

At full speed, Flint raced through the main gate and out onto the paved highway that led to Baghdad, turning right in order to head northeast towards the city. As he left the garrison, he flipped the Vipers who were mounting up to pursue him a one-fingered salute and smiled.

 

***

 

Major Bludd reclined in his air conditioned quarters, part of a quieter corner of the camp where most of the worker barracks and troop hooches had been erected. He was taking a rare moment to himself, glowing in his self-importance and relishing the idea of a hefty pay bonus and some well-needed poontang hunting in downtown Baghdad when his report on Flint’s capture reached Cobra Commander’s headquarters.

 

Checking his watch, the Major figured he would have time for a nap before having to organize another vehicle and detachment of guards to bring Flint out to the Saddam Military Prison and the inevitable interrogation sessions with the Baroness.

 

Just as his eyes began to drift closed, the klaxon alarms went off. One of the alarm loudspeakers was on a pole over his quarters, and when it sounded, the shrill tone almost knocked the major right off his bunk.

 

Swearing to himself about the incompetent Cretins in his garrison, Major Bludd grabbed a radio-phone to contact the camp’s Security Control and the Watch Lieutenant stationed there.

 

The Watch Lieutenant in Security Control was expectedly stressed out when he answered Major Bludd’s call. He stammered out his greeting while the Vipers manning radios and telephones were frantically taking in reports of the mayhem that Flint had caused. “This is Security Control,” the lieutenant finally managed.

 

“This is Major Bludd,” Bludd said evenly, pausing for a moment to let his identity sink in. “What’s with all the fucking alarms all of a sudden?”

 

“Major Bludd?” the lieutenant said. “Umm- sir- ah- Can you hold on for a moment, sir? We’re just getting the word down here...”

 

The fact that confusion had taken hold of the security center irked Bludd to the point of making his blood boil. “I’m not holding, Lieutenant!” the major shouted into the radio-phone. “You give me a bloody situation report or I’m walking right over there to string you up by your fucking balls, you blasted, fucking excuse for an officer!”

 

The Watch Lieutenant clammed up, scanning the hand-scrawled notes his security chiefs were taking, and tried to piece the flow of information into a working timeline of events.

 

“Well?” Major Bludd yelled impatiently over the still-open line. “What the fuck’s the delay, Lieutenant?”

 

“Um- Major, sir, the prisoner’s escaped,” the Watch Lieutenant finally reported in a low voice. “He overwhelmed his guards and by the reports from the underground command center, took a body count of at least nine of our Vipers before disappearing. There are troops sweeping all levels of the command center. The next report came from topside, where troops in the motor pool spotted a guy in American utilities driving one of our Stingers.”

 

“WHAT?” Major Bludd shouted a decibel higher than his previous rants. “Your troops are sweeping the lower levels while Flint was stealing one of our vehicles topside? Order up every available man out of the barracks and every vehicle the motor pool can muster! We’re going after him!”

 

“Sir, a scratch team has mobilized in five Stuns to pursue the Joe,” the watch officer replied. “He blasted through the main gate and turned towards Baghdad.”

 

Bludd yanked on his combat boots and reached for his assault rifle, which had been leaning by the door to his quarters. He continued to yell into his radio-phone as he stepped out into the burning desert sunlight. “You had better watch out for your future, you incompetent Cretin,” Bludd sputtered, reaching a fresh Command Stun that was parked near the rows of barracks buildings.

 

Leaping into the driver’s chair and taking the controls himself, Bludd threw the phone onto the ground, smashing it to bits, and slammed his fist on the push-button ignition switch. The throaty engine roared to life and Bludd shifted the Stun into forward gear, racing out towards the gate and waving to the Vipers and Cobra vehicles converging on the camp’s single exit.

 

“Let’s go, you knuckle-dragging shits!” Bludd swore at the confused soldiers looking for passing vehicles to mount up in, or weapons and ammo to take on the pursuit. “Get your asses up and outta here! If we lose Flint, I’m gonna stake the lot of you louts out in the desert for the animals! COBRA!!!”

 

***

 

Flint kept checking his rearview mirror in the Stinger jeep while trying to follow the paved and sand-swept track that led from the relative desolation of Camp Al-Shu’a to the metropolitan fringes of Baghdad itself. He had figured that even if the word got out about his escape, driving towards the larger concentration of enemy forces would allow him to sow confusion and then go underground, so that it would take longer for check points and sentries to get his general description and be on the lookout for him.

 

Although he felt it a long shot, if he picked the right spot to hunker down, he might even have enough time to get a message out on his TDC communicator, which was still mercifully intact and strapped safely against his groin.

 

The radio in Flint’s vehicle crackled and popped, making a few odd sounds before the channel hopper caught onto the Al-Shu’a garrison’s tactical frequency. He could hear Major Bludd’s voice on the radio, prodding his forces to hit the paved highway he was on at full speed to catch up to the racing Stinger. A quick glance at the speedometer on the dashboard told Flint that he might not get too far before they caught up to him. At best, the jeep was making a hundred kilometers per hour in short bursts, just shy of sixty-three mph. But running the jeep full-out was draining the fuel tanks rather quickly. Flint knew the average Cobra Stun could make a hundred klicks per without breaking a sweat on paved roads. The experimental turbocharged ones could do almost twice that.

 

Flint swore to himself when he realized that Private Murphy, of Murphy’s Law fame, had gotten into the passenger seat and was back-seat driving his Stinger the whole time. A quick glance into the rearview mirror showed a rising cloud of sand about ten klicks back and getting steadily closer, and a look straight down the dust-washed pike showed an Iraqi Republican Guard check point.

 

“If I could only drum you out of the Army, Private Murphy,” Flint groaned, pulling his Stinger off the roadway and into a shallow wadi to conceal it. He hadn’t crossed any road junctions or passed anything big enough to hide himself and the stolen vehicle in. The only thing behind him was Bludd’s troopers, and the only thing in front was the Republican Guards.

 

Flint found a set of field glasses in the Stinger’s equipment kit and watched the check point, and as if on cue, the enemy conscripts stationed there began to scramble into prepared fighting positions. To make matters worse, the unit assigned to the check point was armored infantry. Two BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles lumbered forward to physically block the highway while a T-72M main battle tank behind a defilade berm turned its turtle-back turret in Flint’s direction, leveling a very nasty 125mm tank gun into firing position.

 

Flint spent two minutes scouring the Stinger for anything that might help him out of the situation he was bottled up in. There were no spare uniforms to disguise himself with, nor were there any rations or canteens to ease the parched feeling in his mouth. He did discover some missile reloading canisters strapped to a storage bin next to the launcher assembly, and fitted one of the spares onto the used launcher rail.

 

Other than having a full combat load on the jeep, Flint decided that he was out of options. If he tried to flee overland in terrain that he was unfamiliar with, he might die as soon as the Stinger’s fuel ran out and he had no definite direction to go for food and water. He knew the open desert was to the south and held no promise of survival. His best bet was to charge past the tank and armored carriers, and continue with his original plan to seek shelter inside the city limits, where he could at least scrounge or steal until he found a safe harbor.

 

Gathering up his wits, Flint climbed back behind the wheel of his jeep and pulled it onto the highway. He floored the gas pedal and got the vehicle up to its top speed, which covered the remaining distance to the check point in just over three minutes.

 

The Republican Guards, despite hearing warnings about a security breach from Camp Al-Shu’a, remained in their by-the-book behavior. Two men stepped out in front of the BMP blockade, and one raised a wooden paddle painted red with the word “Stop” written in Arabic across it. They didn’t even flinch when the throaty sounds of the Stinger running at full bore became loud in their ears.

 

Flint armed the missile launcher once more and clicked the firing trigger twice in rapid succession. The IRG sentries finally scrambled for cover, shouting in Arabic for their comrades in the slit trenches to open fire on the speeding jeep. Two ADATS missiles streaked over Flint’s head and blasted through the thin skirt armor of the BMP-1’s, destroying them right where they sat and incinerating the crewmen inside while they tried frantically to bring their vehicle weapons to bear.

 

About fifty meters from the burning tracks, Flint yanked the wheel hard to the right, and took the Stinger off the road, bouncing over the loose scrub and hillocks of sand outside of the rough shoulder of the roadway. As he steered past the burning BMP vehicles, he made sure to pass as far from the T-72M’s hull-down position as possible, keeping the smoke and fire from his missile hits between them.

 

Still, the tank commander was no slouch. The heavy steel turret tracked to its left, slewing the main gun and smaller machineguns over to take aim at Flint’s Stinger. At the same time, Flint took a hand off the wheel and jerked roughly at a small joystick mounted on the dashboard that controlled the quad launcher’s traverse. Once he had the missiles at 270 degrees (which was pointing at the tank), he triggered off one more shot at nearly point-blank range.

 

The gunner of the T-72M got off a shot with the 125mm main gun, just as the missile Flint launched tore into the base of the tank’s turret ring, which was vulnerable since the hull-down position the tank occupied only had the sand berm in front of it. There was no pile of sand protecting the tank’s flanks where Flint had shot at it.

 

While Flint could certainly feel the heat of the high-velocity anti-tank round blasting past the Stinger’s crew compartment, he felt the temperature surely rise when the point-blank missile shot ripped into the turret ring of the T-72M. The high-explosive warhead ripped the thinner steel in the turret ring and basket apart forcing a ball of flames and molten metal fragments into the tank’s fighting compartment. Since the vehicle was equipped with a mechanical auto-loader, only three Iraqi troopers manned the armored behemoth, and they were surely silenced when the blast wave instantaneously hit them in their stations.

 

Flint kept the Stinger rolling as fast as it could go, continuing down the roadway to avoid the withering fire from the Iraqi Republican Guards still firing from their checkpoint’s trench system.

 

About two minutes after Flint had blasted through the checkpoint, Major Bludd’s Stuns arrived at the burning and confused aftermath. Most of the infantrymen that were hiding in the slit trenches still cowered there in shock, afraid to even try to put out the fires in the wrecked tracks and tank. The T-72M’s tank driver had scared the life out of the soldiers when he exited the burning vehicle from his driver’s hatch, engulfed in flame from the burning fuel and ammo inside, finally collapsing on the tank’s glacis plate, unable to continue moving.

 

“These raging incompetents are bloody fools,” Bludd commented as the handful of surviving soldiers poked their fearful faces out of the trenches and pleaded for help from the Cobra troops. The Major leaned over the edge of his compartment to yell at some Vipers who had dismounted to bring aid kits to the Iraqis. “Leave the wankers behind and saddle up! They’re damn lucky we’re not going to shoot them for failure to execute their orders! Move out, troopers!” The Stuns and their Viper crews rolled away from the Iraqi checkpoint in a cloud of dust and sand, roaring down the road after Flint as their diesel engines revved to full throttle.

 

***

 

“Damn! I’m not in the city yet! You can’t quit on me already!” Flint swore at the Stinger when its engine started to cut out and sputter. He rapped on the dashboard, trying especially to coax the fuel gauge that it was lying to him and that he had more go-juice in the tank. When the last drops of gasoline had been burned by the Stinger, it fell silent and rolled to a stop in the middle of the paved road. The warrant officer snatched the black beret off his head and crushed it angrily between his hands, deciding not to cast it onto the ground in his frustration. “Junk Cobra equipment!” he growled in anger.

 

Flint leaped out of the vehicle, knowing the Stuns weren’t that far behind. He scrounged through the cargo compartments once more, only finding the missile reloads and some repair tools buried at the bottom of the jeep’s utility compartment. No jerry cans of fuel or additional weapons and ammo were apparently present. So the warrant officer decided his best shot would be to lure the pursuing Stuns into an ambush and try to block some and steal the point vehicle to continue his escape.

 

With the last missile reload canister fixed on the Stinger’s launcher, Flint found himself with two rounds that he could fire. His AK-74 and pair of .45-caliber USP pistols had several magazines’ worth of ammunition each, but he would have to pick his shots well, since Stuns did have some protection for the crew, and their gun armament outranged his AK-74 by one or two football fields. Plus, they had a lot more of it.

 

With a grunt and the safety brake off, Flint was able to manhandle the Stinger off the road and nose-down into a shallow gully that ran perpendicular to the paved road, to make it look like it had been pulled off the road and abandoned. Since the battery bank (two 12-volt truck batteries and the Stinger’s “AC Delco” car battery under the hood) in the jeep still had a full charge, there was enough electrical power to run the missile launcher if he turned off the vehicle’s target acquisition and scanning systems and fired either by eye or the low-power day/night missile tracker sight.

 

Flint reached into the passenger’s side of the jeep’s fighting compartment and located the manual missile controls, which were in a small metal box attached to a joystick. The controls were the primary means of working the missile launcher, since the driver’s trigger and thumb control on the steering wheel were for emergencies. The box and joystick were easy to remove from the mounting bracket on the Stinger’s dashboard, and when it came free, a goodly length of trunk wiring came slack with it. Flint worked himself into a safe depression about fifteen feet from the Stinger’s spot with his weapons and the launcher controls to await Major Bludd and his Stuns.

 

“Major Bludd,” a Motor-Viper in the point Stun’s crew called over the Cobra tactical radio. “I think the Stinger’s just ahead. There’s a jeep that’s gone off the road to the right, mostly down in a wadi.”

 

Major Bludd took a pair of image intensifiers and scanned ahead of the pursuit unit, nodding at the sight picture he had. “Roger that, point. Approach the Stinger carefully and investigate. Stuns Five and Six, veer off right and go overland to the southern side of the wadi and ‘ave a look ‘round. Our rabbit may ‘ave struck out on foot when his jeep ran outta gas.”

 

The two Stuns at the very end of the six-vehicle column peeled off the road and bounced into the sand and scattered patches of Arabian desert grasses that lined the highway. The column’s point vehicle roared right up to the spot where the Stinger had gone off the road and squealed to a stop, the crew on board the vehicle climbing down with weapons at the ready. Bludd’s command Stun stopped about two hundred meters back, while the Major waved ahead Stuns Three and Four to cover the point while they checked out the ditched Stinger.

 

Because of Flint’s hiding place, he had a limited view of the roadway, and only counted the four Stuns that had progressed along the highway. With Bludd’s Stun stopped farthest back, Flint figured that his plan night actually work. Three of the four Vipers assigned to the point vehicle had dismounted, leaving the anti-aircraft machine gunner’s position manned to provide cover fire if there was any trouble.

 

The Motor-Viper that commanded the point Stun walked along the left side of the Stinger and lazily kicked its left rear tire with his combat boot. “This looks like the one the Joe stole from the camp. Its tag number matches up. Check it out carefully, men.”

 

The two Viper gunners rounded the passenger side of the vehicle and started looking for tracks. Flint smiled to himself for his cleverness. When he had left the Stinger for his hide, he made sure to brush his tracks away with the butt of his AK-74, and also buried the launcher control’s trunk wire under the sand as he extended it out from the jeep. He flipped on the launcher’s Master Arm switch, and the launcher came to life, scaring the Vipers who were more interested in finding footprints.

 

Flint sighted the ADATS missiles onto the parked Stuns covering the dismounted Vipers and fired. With a whoosh, the compressed-air ejectors sent the missiles bursting through their cellulose loading containers and after a split second, the rocket motors kicked in. Tail fire from the rockets singed one of the Vipers and the Motor-Viper driver because they had stood up instinctively to turn their faces and weapons at the new sound. The tail fire gave them an instant “extra-crispy” treatment to their faces and they hit the ground screaming in agony.

 

As the Stinger’s missiles exploded in the distance, successfully reducing the covering Stuns into molten heaps of slag and scattering the crews when they bailed out, Flint left his position and brought the AK-74 out in front of him. The third Viper, who had been rooting around in the jeep’s fighting compartment, and discovered the launcher’s control panel had disappeared, finally backed out of the vehicle to help his buddies. Flint put a steady three-round burst into the Viper from behind, dropping him to the ground. For good measure, or to put them out of their misery, Flint spent a moment to put a .45-caliber dose of redemption into each of the singed Vipers as well.

 

The Stun crews farther back on the road tried to douse the flames in their vehicles after the missile attack. They were being aided by Major Bludd’s crew, whose Command Stun was now blocked from continuing down the road. Flint scurried across the open ground to the point Stun to execute his new escape plan.

 

The point Stun’s tail gunner had been alerted to trouble when the Stinger’s missile fired, and had swung his machine gun towards the Stinger, loading it and making it ready to fire. Flint belly-crawled around the front of the vehicle, using the armored gun barbettes to obscure the tail gunner’s view of his movement, and came up behind the Viper, simply putting two rounds from his USP pistol into the back of the trooper’s head. The Viper slumped down into his station lifelessly.

 

Flint climbed into the driver’s station of the point Stun and used the push-button ignition to bring its diesel engine back to life. He found the controls rather simple, and took only a moment to figure out how to get it moving forward. Gripping the aircraft yoke-styled steering control, Flint gave the Stun some gas and it lurched forward.

 

Major Bludd gasped when he saw Flint peeling away with the point Stun. He motioned for his gunners to get back on board, but from the confusion of putting out the vehicle fires, they didn’t hear him. Angered beyond control, the Major started his Stun up once more, and peeled around the wreckage Flint had caused, bouncing across the sand in pursuit. “Stuns Five and Six, this is Major Bludd,” the Major called on the radio. “Get your fucking tails in gear and return to the roadway. The Joe has taken Stun Two! Cut him off right quickly, lads! Move it!”

 

“Oh, wonderful,” Flint groaned when he saw the two flanking Stuns roar up the far side of the wadi where he parked the Stinger and charge the road, weapons firing. The small-caliber cannon fire chipped at the macadam and asphalt pavement angrily, throwing bits of material up in a cloud of debris. The warrant officer found the master arm switch in the driver’s compartment, where he armed the two pair of main guns. However, without independent gunners to work the weapons, his driver’s triggers could only shoot them straight forward. And the flankers were barreling in from the side.

 

Major Bludd, who was catching up to Flint in his more powerful, turbocharged Command Stun, was in the same boat. His main weapons only fired forward without the gunners in the barbettes, but since Bludd was dealing with Flint’s escaping rear end, he could use the guns to deadly effect.

 

All three Cobra Stuns fired at once, bracketing Flint’s vehicle in a hot and dangerous crossfire. Stun Six scored a hit on the center front wheel of Flint’s Stun, blowing the heavyweight tire and causing the vehicle to drop into a nose-down skid along the roadway. Bludd’s barrage took out a rear side tire seconds later, finally unbalancing the vehicle and causing it to veer right.

 

Flint felt the Stun rolling off underneath him, and since he was unbelted, the careening vehicle tossed him up out of the open driver’s station. He fell to the sand with a crunch and felt a popping in his shoulder, like his right arm was about to be dislocated. The stricken Stun skidded off the road, barely glancing past Stun Six as it swerved to avoid the crash. When the stolen Stun came to a stop against a sand dune, Flint tried to roll himself up onto his feet.

 

His shoulder stung like the devil, and because he was right-handed, he had lost the fighting chance he needed to get out of the situation. When he tried to raise his USP pistol, the weapon fell limply to the sand at his feet. His spare pistol, much of the ammunition and his AK-74 had all been tossed in random directions and were out of reach.

 

Bludd’s Command Stun squealed to a stop right in front of Flint, and Major Bludd stood atop it, pointing his automatic pistol down at the injured Joe. “You’re quite the clever one, ain’t you, Flint?” the Major sneered angrily. “Well, your luck ‘as just ended.”

 

“My shoulder’s dislocated, Bludd,” Flint growled, wishing that a freak sandstorm would show up or that the USP at his feet would magically levitate back into his hand. “I give up.”

 

Two Vipers from Stuns Five and Six tackled Flint from behind, pounding into his body angrily with punches and kicks. The crewmen were beyond angry at what Flint had done to their comrades and were determined to exact a spot of revenge on their own. Major Bludd didn’t even move to stop them. In the process of kicking Flint around, one of the Vipers jammed his combat boot onto Flint’s right arm, and popped it back into its joint, but not without inflicting serious pain on Flint. The warrant officer howled in agony, and the Vipers let up, binding the Joe in ropes that they had brought from their vehicle, and carrying self-satisfied grins on their faces.

 

“It appears there will be no more fucking around with you, Flint,” Bludd said. “I’m going to personally dump your carcass off at Saddam Military Prison, right now. They will see that your life ends in a very pathetic manner.” Bludd waved to the Vipers after they had trussed Flint up in the ropes, motioning for them to secure him across the tops of the front gun barbettes by his wrists and ankles, so that he was stretched across the vehicle and splayed out. “Mount up, Vipers! We’re going right for the prison with him! Tally ho!”


	21. Private Welcome

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter 17.5 (NC-17)

Private Welcome

 

Hafr-al-Batin Air Base

0700 hours, local time

 

The high-bypass ratio engines of a large USAF C-17 Globemaster whined as its flight crew shut them down on the Joe Team’s aircraft ramp. A swarm of ground crew surrounded the plane, setting wheel chocks and parking pieces of support equipment so that the transport could be serviced for its return flight.

 

The C-17’s main ramp opened up, allowing the harsh Saudi sunlight to flood the cavernous cargo bay. Once the loadmaster checked the ramp, the crewman signaled for the transport’s passengers to disembark.

 

Army Specialist-4 Paige Stevenson collected her belongings and orders jacket, slinging two large duffel bags over her shoulder before walking into the early morning light. She led a string of U. S. Army replacements assigned to units based at King Khalid Military City, just flown in from the port of Dhahran.

 

Aircraft marshals in orange safety vests guided the arriving personnel to a large tent where transportation was being arranged to move them to KKMC. As Paige walked in the direction of the tent, another passenger approached her from behind, causing her to drop her duffel bags when he stopped her.

 

“Sorry about that, Specialist,” said Corporal John Butterman, an LRRP scout from the 842nd Intelligence Battalion, who had ridden into Hafr-al-Batin with Paige.

 

“Do you mind, Corporal?” Paige replied with an annoyed tone. She reached down to retrieve her equipment when Butterman laid a hand on her shoulder.

 

“I wanted to ask you,” he said. “What unit are you reporting into? So that I can come by your barracks and ask you out. You know, we could hit the enlisted club together, or something.”

 

“Or something is my choice,” Paige replied with a snarl. “Just because we rode in on the same flight doesn’t mean I’m gonna marry you.”

 

Butterman smiled at the idea she might be challenging him. Specialist-4 Stevenson was shapely and sexy, even in battle dress gear, but muscular and tough. He lecherously thought about getting her into an empty hangar right there at the air base.

 

“Come on,” Butterman continued. “I could see in your eyes that you were giving me the look-see. I know a strong, energetic woman like you would kill for a guy like me. I’m deep recon, and tougher than all the rest.”

 

Paige left her things on the tarmac and turned to face Corporal Butterman, pressing her body close to his. Her eyes burned with an inner confidence and fire. “You’re tougher than all the rest, are you?” she whispered, sliding her hand along the inside of his thigh, which drew a self-satisfied grin from the LRRP scout. “Why, I can’t imagine my life without such a virile man as you.”

 

Butterman felt Paige’s fingers slide up his leg and was enjoying the idea that he was nearly successful in getting himself laid on the first day in country. That is, until Paige reached into his crotch and tightened her fingers into a powerful clenched fist, with his package held tightly between them.

 

Butterman’s eyes bulged in his sockets, as the pain registered through his whole body. When Paige dug her nails into him, pinching right through the soldier’s battle dress uniform, he couldn’t take much more, and dropped to his knees.

 

“You’re not tough enough for me, windbag,” Paige said, turning to reach for her bags and giving Butterman a warning stomp in the gut from one of her thick leather paratrooper boots. “And you seem to have a problem with your hearing. I’m already committed to someone, and he’s a much better man than you.”

 

Paige pulled a photo out of her breast pocket and showed it to the LRRP. The man in the photo wore a black Navy dress uniform, festooned with a number of ribbons and a silver qualification pin above them.

 

“This is my man,” she said, pointing to the qualification badge in the picture. “And this dolphin and trident badge means he’s passed the SEAL training courses. You don’t want me to give him your name and unit, would you?”

 

Injured both physically and in his pride, Butterman sputtered, keeping his hands between his legs in hopes of making the pain go away. “What’s a girly sailor like that gonna do for you?” he mumbled.

 

“He makes my problems go away,” Paige said with an evil smile, lifting Butterman’s chin up to her eye level and drawing a finger across her throat. “Here he comes now. You had better salute him – he’s a Lieutenant.”

 

Butterman watched as an average height man with dark sunglasses approached in desert camouflage battle dress. He had stepped out of a G. I. Joe AWE Striker and was carrying an automatic pistol in a shoulder holster and a slung MP5 SD3 silenced sub-machinegun, fully loaded. As the man strode closer, Butterman was able to make out the subdued rank insignia on his collars. As Paige had described, the man wore two bars in silver thread, which was either an Army Captain or Navy Lieutenant. His embroidered dolphin and trident badge was also visible just above his U. S. Navy service tape, fixed over his right breast pocket.

 

Paige stood at attention and saluted the officer. “Good morning, El-Tee,” she said with a sexy smile that was outside Butterman’s view.

 

Crypto returned the salute and looked past Paige at Corporal Butterman. “As you were, Specialist,” he said, pointing at Butterman. “Was there some sort of trouble here?”

 

“Nothing I couldn’t handle, sir,” Paige replied. She turned to Butterman and whispered, “Are you scared now?”

 

Butterman simply nodded his head and kept quiet.

 

Crypto could read the situation, even though Paige wasn’t admitting to anything. The officer knew that Paige had fetching looks; heck, that was why he had taken a liking to her when they met in Germany, despite the circumstances around what brought them together. It was a good thing for both of them that the usual military regulations were often bent among the Joes where practical.

 

“Corporal... Butterman,” Crypto said, stepping closer to the LRRP. “Some of my best friends and teammates are from the LRRP community. I don’t think it was part of their professional ethics to hit on female military personnel.”

 

“N- no sir, it isn’t,” Butterman said.

 

“Well, if you were out to get the Specialist’s barracks and phone number,” Crypto said, drawing a stare and a grin from Paige. “She’s been assigned to MY unit, G. I. Joe. Since we don’t exist and we’re not supposed to be here, you’ve just been told a highly classified secret. For breaching our team’s operational security, I should terminate you immediately.”

 

Butterman gulped, as Crypto patted his MP5. The LRRP asked quietly, “Aren’t you supposed to keep those things unloaded or with the safety set while on the flight line?”

 

Crypto raised his pointer finger and flexed it. “This is my weapon’s safety,” he said evilly. “Any other stupid questions?”

 

Butterman stuttered out an apology to Paige. “I’m sorry, Specialist,” he said. “I won’t bother you again.”

 

“And?” Crypto said, standing over Butterman.

 

“Let me bring your bags over to your ride,” Butterman offered meekly.

 

“That’s better, soldier,” Crypto said. “I really didn’t want to practice the two hundred unarmed methods of killing a man on you.”

 

Crypto and Paige boarded the AWE Striker and dismissed the overzealous Corporal without further incident.

 

“So, how was your flight in from the States?” Crypto asked, after starting the engine and leaving the G. I. Joe flight ramp for the desert road to KKMC.

 

Paige, also known to Crypto and the Joes as Hide and Seek, turned to face her boyfriend, the desert wind dragging out her shoulder-length auburn hair into long tendrils. A pair of Crypto’s Gargoyle shooting glasses protected her thoughtful eyes from the blowing dust.

 

“Other than that pushy LRRP, uneventful,” she said. “I’m looking forward to settling in.”

 

“Well, you’re going to be sharing enlisted quarters with Tailwind,” Crypto said, passing over a thick envelope with check in materials and Paige’s security ID card, which also opened her barracks room door much like a digital hotel room key. “Your approval to join the Sky Patrol airborne unit is in there. Congratulations.”

 

Paige smiled at the news. She had worked hard to graduate jump school, advanced survival training and the cross-training course with the U. S. Air Force’s rescue jumpers in order to obtain a qualification as a search and rescue specialist. “I’d love to celebrate the news with you, if you have the time,” she said with a grin.

 

“My section’s got a lot of work to do, and General Tomahawk needs me in there to keep the data moving,” Crypto said. “But I think I can break some time away today. How about a nice, private welcoming party for two in my quarters?”

 

Paige ran her hand up Crypto’s thigh and gently squeezed it. “Better drop the hammer, Lieutenant. I don’t want to miss a moment of celebrating.”

 

In less than an hour, Crypto and Hide and Seek cleared the different levels of security that protected the Joe Team base, and the two arrived in the parking lot of the personnel barracks.

 

“I assume you want to pay a visit to my place first, huh?” Crypto asked, shutting off the AWE Striker’s engine and climbing out of the vehicle. He pulled Paige’s duffel bags out of the cargo rack and passed one to her, as they entered the barracks.

 

After passing the CQ station, Paige nodded and smiled. “You had better take me to your place, sailor,” she said. “I’ve been missing you like crazy.”

 

“I missed you too,” Crypto said. “But I’m glad you weren’t assigned to the first stage movement. The advance team and the general’s convoy were attacked in separate occasions. It was pretty rough.”

 

Paige pouted, turning her lips down into a look of concern. “Did anything happen to you?”

 

“Nothing worth concerning yourself with,” Crypto replied, sneaking a pinch on Paige’s posterior to get her to walk faster. They worked their way through the barracks until they reached Staff Country, the wing where all of the Joe officers and senior NCO’s were quartered.

 

Crypto swiped his ID card through the electronic lock outside his mini-apartment, and held the door open for Paige.

 

“You like the digs?” he asked, setting Paige’s bag down just inside the entry.

 

“Pretty nice for a combat zone,” Paige replied. “At least you get privacy.”

 

“Well, you know that as soon as I can obtain a blank pass card for this place, you’re welcome to share it,” Crypto said. “So any time Tailwind bugs the life out of you, my door is always open.”

 

“It sure had better be,” Paige replied, dropping her duffel bag and throwing her arms around Crypto’s neck. She closed her eyes and parted her lips slightly, pulling Crypto close. The amorous couple leaned into each other and kissed deeply, their lips moving together and apart as Paige initiated a passionate French kiss with her warm tongue.

 

Crypto’s hands moved gently down Paige’s body, lifting her up onto her tiptoes while they kissed. After a long moment of re-connecting to each other physically, Paige got a lustful fire in her eyes and began to remove Crypto’s equipment, tossing his weapons and web gear aside. After she removed his outer layer, she unbuttoned his BDU shirt and trousers, slipping him out of his zip-up jump boots and stopping the strip-down at his skivvies.

 

Paige sat Crypto on the edge of his bed rack and walked back to her duffel bags. She rooted around in one of them for a moment, hiding the object that she had taken out from Crypto’s view. She turned to the door to Crypto’s bathroom and slipped inside, peeking around the corner of the doorjamb to smile at her man.

 

“No peeking, Kurt,” Paige whispered, blowing him a kiss. “Just wait right there.”

 

After about three minutes, Paige stepped out of the bathroom, dressed only in a silky, lace teddy and matching thong panties in a soft baby blue. The nearly sheer fabric flowed down along her curves, but also hugged her shape in just the right spots.

 

Crypto could see the outline of Paige’s shape under the soft fabric and smiled at how sexy and sensual his girlfriend was. He reached both his hands out towards her, motioning for her to come closer to him.

 

Paige smiled teasingly, wagging her finger at him. “Not yet, big boy,” she whispered seductively, padding across the floor in her bare feet and posing for Crypto. She raised her arms over her head and gave her hips a little sway, watching with enjoyment as Crypto’s eyes followed her from head to toe.

 

“Come closer, baby,” Crypto said with a grin. “It’s time to hit the silk!”

 

Paige turned around on the balls of her feet, giving Crypto a view of her backside. She ran a hand along the side of her leg and then playfully patted a spot of uncovered skin. “You and your paratrooper jokes,” she teased. “Just for that, you don’t get to touch yet.”

 

She swayed her hips and bent over, almost touching Crypto’s knees with the backs of her legs, giving him a playful show, and every time he tried to caress her or pull her closer, she playfully slapped away his hand.

 

“Have I got your attention now?” she teased. “No more airborne jokes?”

 

“No more jokes, babe,” Crypto replied, blowing her an apologetic kiss. “Come here. It’s been too long to be teasing me.”

 

“Why, Sailor,” Paige said with a smile, as she inched herself closer and slid into his lap. “Is that a five inch shell, or are you just happy to see me after that long sea tour?”

 

“Now who’s telling the bad jokes?” Crypto said, throwing his arms around Paige’s waist and tickling her gently. When she broke into laughter and started to wiggle, he rolled sideways and pulled her onto the bed rack.

 

“Oh, Sailor,” Paige moaned while Crypto pulled her against his body and voraciously kissed the nape of her neck. “Please be gentle. I’ve traveled a long way to see you.”

 

“I promise,” Crypto mumbled, his nostrils soaking up the subtle, flowery scent of her perfume. It was Paige’s favorite, and had grown on him, even though at first he thought it smelled much too strong when she wore it for him. His lips drifted along the soft, warm flesh of her neck while Paige brought her hands down to his, their fingers intertwining.

 

Paige moaned with pleasure when Crypto’s lips found one of her sensitive spots. She let him slip a hand up along her belly where he felt the soft silk of her teddy.

 

“Mmm,” Crypto hummed with his lips pressed against her neck. “Soft and warm. Just like you.”

 

“Oh, Sailor,” Paige whispered through short breaths. “You know just the right things to say to a girl.”

 

Crypto backed away from Paige and she rolled onto her back, tracing her fingers along the contours of his chest muscles when he peeled off his tee shirt. She playfully tugged at his boxer shorts, cupping at his erection underneath. “I can tell you’ve really missed me baby,” she said.

 

“Not yet,” Crypto whispered, leaning down to kiss Paige passionately once more. She moaned softly under his lips and wrapped one of her legs around his waist. He kissed down to her chest and slipped the shoulder straps off her teddy, but didn’t touch her heaving breasts.

 

Paige could feel the flesh of her nipples firming up at the idea of Crypto teasing them with his tongue or caressing them between his fingers, but he got her more excited by not doing so right away. Instead, he kissed down the silky teddy to her midriff and pressed his lips against the flesh of her belly.

 

Paige ran her fingers through Crypto’s hair and then lifted up the teddy. She rubbed the back of his neck gently, urging him to move up to her breasts. He kissed his way up to her fleshy bosom, savoring each firm nipple with flicks of his tongue and then taking them into his warm mouth. Thoroughly stimulated by his touch, Paige opened her mouth to let out a long, satisfied gasp.

 

While Crypto continued to enjoy the taste of her breasts, Paige grabbed onto one of his hands and brought it to her mouth, moaning happily and sucking on each finger one at a time. She spread her legs underneath Crypto, and wrapped them around his hips. She began to moan more insistently as the temperature of her desire rose. “Kurt, baby,” she whispered. “I want you so much.”

 

“I want you too, Paige,” Crypto whispered in between gentle movements of his mouth around her excited nipples. He slid down her body, spreading her legs wider apart. Then he took hold of her thong panties with one hand and guided her legs together with the other. He tugged her panties off and drew them down the length of her legs while kissing up and down her thighs and calves.

 

Paige moaned deeply with pleasure, enjoying every new sensation more than the last. When Crypto let go of her ankles, she spread her legs apart immediately, and reached for him. She caught hold of his cheeks, gently stroking them while she gazed into his eyes and smiled. When she brought her fingers back to the short-cropped hair atop his head, he lowered himself between her thighs.

 

At first, he simply kissed the flesh and muscles inside her thighs, drawing deep breaths of pleasure from Paige while his fingers probed lightly into her lips, feeling for her clitoris which was already moist with anticipation. When he found it, he gently rubbed it with his thumb, as Paige writhed and bucked her hips longingly.

 

When he brought his lips down to kiss hers, she was spreading herself open with her hands for him, almost begging for him to take her all the way. He manipulated her clit more with his fingers before softly blowing warm air across it and reaching out with his tongue.

 

“Mmm, that feels so good,” Paige moaned, writhing from side to side with every touch. A tight sensation formed in the pit of her stomach, driven by her sexual desire for Crypto. With every caress and kiss, the muscles in her thighs became taut and she shivered from the very depths of her soul when his tongue or fingertips brushed the sensitive skin around her clit and vagina.

 

After a while, Paige could no longer control herself and climaxed with a muffled scream. Her muscles twitched uncontrollably as she ground Crypto’s face between her legs and released all the pent up energy he was drawing from her.

 

“Get up here,” Paige ordered in a near-breathless voice. “Now.” She tugged at Crypto’s shoulders and spread her legs to let him up.

 

Crypto rose onto his hands and knees, smiling at Paige while he inched forward. “I take it you liked that?” he whispered.

 

Paige didn’t answer in so many words. She grabbed his cheeks and pulled his face up to hers, puckering up to give him a long, passionate kiss. Her tongue split Crypto’s lips and eagerly found his tongue. Their tongues danced together and both lovers released muffled moans of desire.

 

Without any sort of warning, Paige pressed her hands against Crypto’s chest and rolled him over on the bed. She hungrily kissed down his chest and peeled off his boxer shorts, licking her luscious red lips at the sight of his firm erection. She gently worked his manhood with her hand and kissed around his stomach, causing Crypto to moan happily.

 

“Let me show you how much I like what you do to me,” Paige whispered. She stroked his erection slowly with her hand and then pressed her chest against him, rubbing her skin against his and teasing the sensitive nerve endings in his flesh. She slid up the length of his body, grinding her pelvis against his and then wiggling her hips to accept his stiff erection inside of her.

 

Paige closed her eyes slowly and let out a soft moan of satisfaction when the warm folds of her vagina took hold of his manhood. She licked her lips and clenched the muscles around her pelvis and thighs, squeezing him and keeping them as one.

 

Crypto’s hands rested on Paige’s hips, as she arched her back and started to rock her hips, keeping a smile etched on her face. She allowed Crypto to lean his head forward and growled with an animal passion the moment his lips wrapped around her hard nipples once more.

 

For a long time, Paige rocked her hips on top of Crypto and ground her pelvis into his, mouthing the words “I love you” between hoarse breaths. Her body had taken over, not allowing her mouth to speak while the waves of her desire and the intense sensations of making love to her man consumed her.

 

She felt Crypto’s hands tighten around her hips and he mumbled at first, before announcing with a rough voice that she was making him climax. “I’m coming, Paige!” he said, as she clenched her muscles around him and felt the waves of her own climax coming to a head.

 

Paige felt Crypto’s man-muscle tense inside of her, becoming ramrod straight as the liquid heat of his loins entered her. When his throbbing member released all of his passion for her, she threw back her head and ran her fingers through Crypto’s hair, screaming out his name as he brought her to a mind-blowing release.

 

Paige’s arms became limp after she came, and Crypto pulled her down onto his chest, kissing her cheeks and lips softly as she panted to catch her breath. He cradled her head against his own heaving chest, stroking her cheek and whispering his love for her.

 

Paige sighed when the heat in her body started to wane. “I hate being apart from you. I missed you a lot, Kurt.”

 

“I missed you too, Paige,” Crypto said, lazily twirling a lock of her hair between his fingers. “Stay with me until tonight, and then I’ll take you to your quarters.”

 

Paige rested her chin on Crypto’s chest and smiled. “I’d love to,” she said, “so long as you promise to give me more hot loving.”

 

Crypto let out a laugh and pulled his arms tightly around Paige, drawing her up so their lips could meet. When he kissed her again, she felt his erection stiffen and nestled herself into his arms, ready for more.


	22. Confinement

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Eighteen

Confinement

 

G.I. Joe barracks facility

King Khalid Military City, Saudi Arabia

26 July, 2002

1000 hours, local time

 

While the majority of the Joes living on base at KKMC went about their duties all over the complex, a pair of voices echoed through the ground-floor halls of the hotel-like barracks. The voices belonged to Green Shirts assigned to the Chief of Quarters (CQ) detachment, working in a small collection room near the rear of the building which was connected to the loading and unloading docks. The two men in the room were grousing about having been assigned to laundry duty and being required to collect the residents’ soiled uniforms for the daily run to the 677th Quartermaster Laundry Company’s area where the American garrison forces at KKMC sent clothing to be cleaned and repaired.

 

“There are days when I love the Army, and then there are days like this,” Corporal Mike Lavallette, one of the Green Shirts, complained. “Combat troops shouldn’t be slinging dirty utilities on base.” The lean, ex-82nd Airborne Division paratrooper dragged a heavy load of laundry sacks out of the hallway and into a spot where he could inventory the number of sacks that were going for cleaning and the number destined for repairs. He also logged each sack’s owner onto a return list, so that the 677th wouldn’t lose someone’s precious unmentionables in the quartermaster company’s handling system.

 

Lavallette’s partner, Petty Officer 3rd Class Sean Layton, cinched tight the drawstring on a laundry sack and tagged it with the owner’s name and barracks number before tossing it onto a pile of similar sacks in the cargo bed of their 2-1/2 ton M-35A2 truck parked at the adjacent loading dock. “The military can’t afford maid service in a combat zone, Corporal. So we get the dirty end of the stick.”

 

“What are you in for?” Lavallette asked. “I got two weeks here from Beach Head when the MP’s dragged me back from the enlisted club. I wasn’t drunk or disorderly, but every man in the place got busted when a fight broke out.”

 

PO3 Layton laughed. “Yeah, that was one heck of a fight. I was sure that the big Saudi wrestler was going to kick that tiny Marine’s ass!”

 

“You were there?” Lavallette asked, tossing Layton a tagged laundry sack.

 

Layton nodded as he caught the sack, turned, and heaved it onto the truck. “The bartender thought I was to blame for starting the whole to-do because the Marine was screwing with my dart game with the Saudi trooper. As it was, they got into it without my help.”

The men chuckled as Glyph, Marine Chief Warrant Officer Kyle Morrow, entered with a laundry sack. The sailor and soldier snapped to attention when the Warrant Officer dropped his sack to the floor with a dull thud. “At ease, troops,” Glyph said quietly. “I’m glad I caught you before you took off for the laundry unit.”

 

“No problem, Mister Morrow,” Layton replied, turning on his heels to accept another sack from Lavallette.

 

Lavallette spun to reach for Glyph’s laundry, only to find the Marine standing in a combat stance with a saw-toothed combat knife drawn and a murderous look in his eye. “Layton, watch out!” was what Lavallette intended to call when the blade was plunged into his neck and drawn up and out through his windpipe. Instead of the shouted warning, the soldier barely managed a gurgle as he clutched at the geyser of blood gushing out of the gash in his throat and fell against the wall.

 

Glyph sidled up behind Layton quietly and snaked his arm around the sailor. With lightning speed, he pulled Layton’s body tightly against his and then reached across Layton’s face, jerking his chin around hard enough to silently break his neck. He held Layton’s mouth closed with a fistful of torn fabric until he stopped breathing and went limp.

 

When the grisly work was done, Glyph dragged PO3 Layton out to the truck and placed him in the passenger’s seat of the truck cab, arranging him to appear as if he was reclined against the door, sleeping. Corporal Lavallette’s bloody body was dumped into a large duffel bag, and a rubber mask was tossed inside the bag before it was closed up. Glyph’s face had been replaced by that of Black Out, a recently-recruited Cobra sniper and assassin.

 

Black Out swapped his BDU shirt with Lavallette’s, who was roughly his size. Both men were clean shaven and had short-cropped hair, so impersonating the Green Shirt long enough to suit his needs would be a no-brainer for the enemy infiltrator.

 

Black Out had been the Cobra agent who infiltrated the U.S. Naval Station in Bahrain, aided by local members of the Iraqi foreign intelligence apparatus, with the intention of switching places with the real Glyph and subtly getting into KKMC.

 

Cobra Techno-Vipers who were engaged in hacking into the variety of networked American government computer systems were able to stumble across Glyph’s transfer orders to the Joes, and realized an opportunity had presented itself to put an agent on the ground at the team’s forward base in Saudi Arabia.

 

In actuality, the Techno-Vipers had stumbled across Glyph’s release orders from the Marines, which were closer to the public domain. Since the regular military had to keep their personnel paperwork neat and tidy in order to justify their manpower budgets to Congressional penny-pinchers, Glyph had to essentially be administratively discharged from the Marines prior to joining the Joes, which was funded under a totally different accounting system in the Congressional financial oversight committees.

 

But when the administrative discharge was logged into the Marines’ personnel management server in the Washington Naval Yard a few days after several pay and travel authorizations for him were logged into another easily-penetrated records system, the red flags went up. Cobra had rightly guessed that Glyph – the real one – was a replacement trooper who was going into black ops.

 

The Techno-Vipers still had clandestine electronic inroads with records that were being kept by the Jugglers outside of normal military channels, and had been able to hack into a backup server where data on the Joe manpower buildup was being kept outside of General Tomahawk’s knowledge. A few hours’ of computerized scanning through those secret files yielded a match on Glyph’s real name. And thus, Chief Warrant Officer Kyle Morrow had become Black Out’s target.

 

Black Out was very good at spy craft. He could almost smell the change in the SCIF crews when Mainframe had discovered his black box in the intelligence shop. After a random visit to the SCIF resulted in discovering that Mainframe had actually retrieved, tampered with, and returned the special internet link, Black Out knew he would have to exfiltrate subtly, to avoid the security lock down and search.

 

When Beach-Head instituted the lock down measures, people began moving around command areas and work spaces in pairs or groups for mutual identification, which had forced Black Out to hide patiently most of the day in the barracks, moving about constantly to beat the random security sweeps Sure Fire had been sending around. But he had also been watching the routine activities for a way out of KKMC.

 

After Corporal Lavallette’s corpse was well buried under piles of laundry sacks, Black Out gathered up a clipboard with the truck’s exit pass and daily orders, climbed into the truck’s cab, and drove the vehicle out onto the main gate road.

 

It took the Army deuce-and-a-half less than five minutes to reach the reinforced checkpoint at the Joe Complex’s main entrance. The simple guard shack that protected the guard shift from the heat of the day was supported by two M-3A3 Bradley cavalry fighting vehicles and their five-man crews of Green Shirts.

 

Black Out brought the M-35A2 truck to a stop behind a trio of heavily armed Hummers assigned to perimeter patrol, and the sniper nervously adjusted himself, hoping the guards would be conned into letting him leave.

 

After shifting his BDU collar and taking a swig of warm water from PO3 Layton’s canteen, Black Out noticed Law motioning the truck to come forward. Black Out shifted the vehicle back into gear and rolled it slowly up to the heavy cement and steel road barricade.

 

“Good morning, Sergeant Lavigne,” Black Out said in greeting, his quick eyes spotting Law’s Army-issued name tape. He passed the orders clipboard out the driver’s side window to the Military Policeman and leaned against the door patiently.

 

“Corporal Lavallette...” Law began, reading the orders and exit pass. “And Petty Officer Layton. You’re on the laundry run to the quartermasters, eh?”

 

“That would be us, Sarge,” Black Out replied in a casual drawl. “Ol’ Layton over there is already snoozing. We’ve been on extra punishment duty since the fight in the Enlisted Club.”

 

“Consider yourselves lucky that it didn’t turn out to be hard time in the stockade, troop,” Law replied, climbing onto the truck’s running board and looking across the cab at Layton’s still form. “A-yep. He must be tired, that sailor.”

 

Law motioned for one of two Joes posted in the guard house to come out and inspect the truck. Barrel Roll, who had pulled a half-shift of guard duty after being debriefed from his overnight mission, walked over to Law as the sergeant climbed down from the truck.

 

“Barrel Roll, give the truck the usual once over and check under the chassis,” Law ordered. “Let me know when it’s okay to clear the gate.”

 

“You got it, Sarge,” Barrel Roll replied. As he began walking around the truck with a handheld mirror on a pole, he looked under the front of the truck for extra passengers and then made his way down each side. Black Out studied the airborne trooper with just his eyes in the truck’s rear view mirror. He didn’t want to give any indication to the soldiers at the guard post that he recognized Barrel Roll. The Sky Patrol paratrooper and glider assault specialist was Black Out’s estranged younger brother.

 

A squealing sound came from the back of the truck as Barrel Roll brought down the tailgate and climbed into the cargo bed. He shuffled around in the back for a few moments amid the sacks and duffel bags of smelly sweat-soaked laundry before retreating from the vehicle and setting everything back as it had been.

 

Barrel Roll returned to the deuce’s cab and passed the orders clipboard up to Black Out. His eyes flashed for a moment as if he had recognized his elder sibling, even though Black Out had made sure not to look directly at him, and a false moustache obscured his natural facial contours. Barrel Roll shook his head and wiped a bead of sweat off his brow, flashing a thumbs-up to Law.

 

“You’re clear,” Barrel Roll said to Black Out as the Cobra infiltrator slipped the truck into gear.

 

With a mumbled word of thanks, Black Out gave the truck some gas and the heavy cargo vehicle lurched forward through the gate. When he was well past the checkpoint, Black Out heaved a sigh of relief. Breaking through the American and Saudi security perimeters in the main part of KKMC would be child’s play compared to how close he had just been to discovery.

 

Barrel Roll walked into the small, air-conditioned guard shack and set the security copy of the laundry truck’s exit orders into a plastic letter tray with other similar papers. He grabbed for a liter-sized bottle of water that was sweating with condensation, and took a long drag.

 

“Is everything okay, Barrel Roll?” Law asked, without looking up from the security monitor that scanned through their post’s overhead cameras.

 

“I dunno,” Barrel Roll replied. “I think the desert or the long hours of combat duty have gotten to me. Corporal Lavallette looked a helluva lot like my older brother Thomas if he had been in the Army and had a couple months’ worth of hard combat, at least compared to how I remember him.”

 

“I wouldn’t know, kid,” Law remarked. “What happened to your brother, anyway?”

 

“I can’t say,” Barrel Roll said, kicking his feet up on the guard shack’s table. “Three years ago, we were both applying for Special Operations... Delta Force, actually. I was fresh out of Ranger and Jump School, and he had been in Special Forces for two years.”

 

“We both made it through the Delta Selection course,” Barrel Roll continued, taking another sip of water. “Both of us got recommended for the Joe Team, too, when I joined the Green Shirt replacement unit. But he never went operational. Instead, he disappeared right after washing out of the Joes’ initial entry training program and I was posted to Sky Patrol. Over the few months since he dropped off the radar, our parents hadn’t heard a thing, and nether had I.”

 

“That’s some story,” Law commented. “But I wouldn’t worry about that for now. Your relief will be here at noon, and you can go get some primo rack time. I suggest you spend your off duty time sleeping and squaring your shit away.”

 

“I’m planning on it, Law,” Barrel Roll replied, turning to watch the security monitor while Law left the shack to stop a supply column of HEMTT trucks that were arriving.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, in the Secure Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF)

 

The debriefing room in the SCIF, which doubled as the intelligence shop’s break room and conference area, had become quite a mess when compared to its normally sterile appearance. Audio CD’s recorded from the individual debriefings of mission personnel had been stacked neatly with printed transcripts and copies of supporting information in heavy envelopes wrapped with bright orange sealing tape and stamped “Classified”.

 

What made the room a mess was the mission maps, discarded equipment that the tired troopers never bothered to pick up, and the general items left behind by the hardworking S-2 section as they hurried to finish interviewing all the Joes that had returned from the Hatchet and Crazy Horse operations, and their subsequent extraction missions.

 

Swansong studied the notes her transcriber had taken from the last interview, while she awaited a visit from Windmill, for his account of the attempted rescue of Flint’s aircrew at the Dragonfly crash site. Just thinking about the fact that three Joes total, two of them officers, had been captured saddened the major considerably.

 

She had seen many young male and female colleagues fall in battle in the skies over the Golan when her squadron-mates were pressed into service to defend the Israeli skies against Syrian aggression in the most harrowing six days of their young lives. Although they bloodied the enemy’s nose much worse than the attrition they absorbed themselves, every mortal injury and pilot that didn’t return weighed heavily on the survivors. But knowing your comrade was down and in enemy hands felt the worst.

 

There was something very special about Swansong, something that no one in the American military knew about other than Major Levinson herself. It was a body of experience that the major wished she didn’t have, because it represented old pain from a time long gone.

 

Swansong’s reverie was broken by a knock at the interview room’s door. An armed green shirt guard outside opened the door and ushered Windmill in wordlessly. The Flight Warrant Officer stopped across the table from Swansong and stood stiffly at attention as the sentry shut the door behind the Joes. As the door clicked shut, Windmill snapped a salute and reported.

 

“Ma’am, Captain Edward Roth, codename Windmill, reporting as instructed for mission debrief, ma’am!”

 

Swansong returned the salute and then motioned to the chair across from where she was seated, pressing subtly on a button that started a recorder in another room. Pinhole cameras aimed at the interview table and audio pickups came to life, as an S-2 section transcriber sat at a laptop computer to write the contents of the interview down. A second computer recorded the audio and video from the debriefing independently onto a high-density digital compact disk for storage and review later.

 

“Please have a seat and be at ease, Windmill,” Swansong said. She waved her hand to a cooler that had been refreshed only a few minutes before, containing icy cold cans of Yo Joe Cola and bottled water, along with a wide selection of American candy bars that had been liberated from the mess facility to help the debriefing process along. She also pushed a pack of Marlboros across the table with a well-worn Zippo lighter. “Care for a drink? Candy bar for some energy? A smoke?”

 

“I’m fine, Major,” Windmill replied, pushing back the pack of smokes with a shaky hand.

 

“You look rather piqued, Captain,” Swansong observed, retrieving a fresh notepad and several pens to write with. “Did you get a chance to rest after you got back from Hafr-al-Batin?”

 

“I’m still nervous, ma’am,” Windmill replied. He drummed his fingers on the table softly. “Coming back from that hot LZ and with my flight leader missing... well- I haven’t had much reason to sleep just yet. Nervous energy, I guess.”

 

“It’s understandable to feel bad about Flint and Sergeant Wiley, Captain,” Swansong said, nodding her head in agreement. “I need for you to go over the exact details of your part of the mission, so that we can collect the data for any possible leads and to have an idea whether the Joes are still alive or not. As of right now, we know very little and want to bring home any survivors as fast as possible.”

 

Windmill recounted how he had been ordered to stay over the ‘fat boys’, his term for the CH-53C transports, to provide aerial cover for the establishment of LZ Ugly and the subsequent rescue of the Crazy Horse ground team. Flint had taken on the job of distracting the Cobra pursuit column with his gunship, and was ultimately brought down some distance away from where the MH-60K DAP orbited the landing zone.

 

He continued to tell the story of what he had seen at the crash site, attacking the Cobra perimeter that had enveloped Flint and Wiley’s position in order to attempt to clear out enough resistance to fast-rope his crew chief and one gunner down to the ground to help Flint and Sergeant Wiley get far enough away from the wreckage to re-board the Nighthawk and get away.

 

Windmill’s hands kept shaking as he talked. He reached for Swansong’s Marlboros and lit one up, half expecting to be berated for smoking in the SCIF. Swansong simply blinked and nodded that it was okay to have a smoke while they talked. The pilot took a long drag on the lit cigarette and sighed as the cloud of smoke drifted out when he exhaled.

 

“Please continue,” Swansong said, after Windmill smoked enough to ease up.

 

“Well, Major, the crash site was well surrounded by Cobra Stuns,” Windmill continued. “And I couldn’t risk a fast-rope insertion of my crewmen because my copilot identified Major Bludd and an element of his troopers holding Flint and Sergeant Wiley at gunpoint.”

 

“What did Flint do?” Swansong asked. “Your copilot also reported an explosion as you turned to make a gun pass at the Stun perimeter.”

 

“Flint must’ve had a satchel charge or the Dragonfly’s failsafe demo pack rigged to go,” Windmill replied. “He started a scuffle on the ground and the Dragonfly went up like the Fourth of July. After the blast, I didn’t see anyone moving.”

 

“Was the area secured enough to attempt a landing?” Swansong asked, scribbling furiously and making observations of Windmill’s demeanor and stress level as he reported on his actions the previous night.

 

Windmill puffed another drag of cigarette smoke and shook his head. “The LZ was hot as ever, ma’am. I had my door gunners open up, but we had a ground-based SAM threat light us up, along with the Stuns’ gun barbettes. None of the crew saw movement worth a shit. So we figured the worst had happened – that the blast had gotten both Flint and Sergeant Wiley. My crew was at risk and the LZ was under heavy attack, so we pulled out to regroup.”

 

Windmill shook his head sadly. “You don’t think we left Flint and Wiley out there to die, do you?”

 

Swansong shook her head. “That’s not my call to make, Captain. If it were me, you did what you could with the information you had at hand. I’m sure General Tomahawk will understand that when he reviews the interviews.” She reached for the cooler and handed Windmill a bottle of water. “Take a slug and polish off that cigarette, Captain. Then go get yourself some decent rest. If we need to fill in any blanks for the reports, I’ll send someone for you. Thanks for your time, Captain.”

 

Windmill nodded his thanks while Swansong finished her notes and wrote up an orders form for the pilot’s unit leader. “Major, if the general is planning a rescue, I want in.”

 

Swansong grabbed onto the cuff on the end of Windmill’s flight suit’s right sleeve. “Don’t you go flying off the handle, or make an unauthorized trip back to the crash site. We’re trying to ascertain if Flint and Sergeant Wiley are still alive. What you don’t know is another Joe was captured behind the lines. So if there is a rescue, trust us to tell you when we need volunteers. Until then, stand down or report to your unit commander for a return to the routine base duties. I’m going to recommend forty-eight hours’ restriction from your combat flight rotation. Let the other crews tackle any missions into Indian Country for a bit. I’m sure Wild Bill can find a job for you until then.”

 

“Yes, I’m sure he can, ma’am,” Windmill said with a salute, accepting the orders form and exiting the interview room quietly. Moments after he departed, Swansong left the room to call for a driver and HMMWV to make the short trip to Hafr-al-Batin Air Base.

 

***

 

1005 hours, local time

At the KKMC base hospital

 

Duke and Scarlett entered the recovery room where Falcon had been moved after being treated for his combat injuries. Despite being groggy from the sedatives and morphine ampoules that he was given in the field, the Special Forces operator was all smiles when a curvaceous Army nurse in a neat, tight-fitting set of scrubs began fussing over him.

 

“I see you haven’t lost your good luck, Falcon,” Duke said with a smile, approaching his half-brother’s bedside and resting a palm gently on the Lieutenant’s shoulder. “Don’t you think a certain young lady might become jealous?”

 

“Hey, I can’t help it if I attract the most beautiful examples of the opposite sex that haven’t fallen for you and Flint already,” Falcon said, earning a smile and flattered giggle from the nurse as she took his vital signs. “Where is Jinx, anyway?”

 

“She was called into seclusion with the rest of the ninja commandos to plan a new mission. Tomahawk’s direct orders,” Scarlett replied, stepping forward to look Falcon over. “I’ll let her know you’re okay, and that your eyes are firmly planted in their sockets.”

 

“Hah! Fat chance,” Falcon laughed, wincing slightly as the shift in his position to guffaw strained a few of his sutures. “Have you seen Lady Jaye yet? She was in pretty bad shape, but she saved my life out there.”

 

“We’re going to look in on her next,” Duke replied, his lips turning down into a frown. “Unfortunately, we have to tell her some bad news.”

 

Falcon’s eyes flashed with concern. “What happened when we came back to the barn? Was there another mission out there?”

 

“The details of the mission are Need-To-Know, bro,” Duke said, watching Scarlett brush away a tear. “But Flint was shot down behind the lines on a pickup op.”

 

Falcon was visibly shaken from the news. Although the word had spread quickly among the other mission team members during their evacuation, Falcon and Jaye were too out of it to hear the traffic between the Bloodhound aircraft when the SITREPS were being transmitted back to the command headquarters.

 

“I- I... Oh, damn,” Falcon muttered sadly. “I don’t envy you going in to talk to Jaye.”

 

Scarlett reached over the bed’s safety rail to grab Falcon’s hand. “We’re glad you’re doing okay, Falcon.”

 

The enlisted nurse finished making notes in Falcon’s chart and raised her eyes to look at Scarlett and Duke. “First Sergeant, the other patient is next door. I’ll go with you to help out if you like.”

 

“That’s a good idea, Corporal. Thanks,” Duke replied, taking Scarlett’s hand to lead her out of Falcon’s room. “Doc wants to be sure she doesn’t have any physical reaction to the news that could endanger her.”

 

The nurse nodded respectfully and left Falcon’s room while Duke and Scarlett gave the operator a last comforting touch each. “You’ll be out of here soon enough, kid,” Duke said, patting Falcon’s shoulder. “I’ll see you later.”

 

Shutting the private room’s door silently, Duke and Scarlett walked to the adjacent room, where the nurse was helping Lady Jaye to move into a sitting position before taking her vital signs and making a quick examination of the wound dressings that covered the surgeons’ repair work.

 

“Hi, Scarlett,” Lady Jaye said weakly upon seeing the couple enter her room. “Hey there, Duke.”

 

“Hi, Alison,” Scarlett said softly, watching the nurse fuss over her duties and dragging a chair next to Jaye’s bed where the two women could sit and talk together. “You look like you barely survived ten rounds with a professional wrestler, girl.”

 

“I probably feel much worse than I look,” Jaye replied, managing a soft smile and trying to flare her nostrils to get her oxygen cannula into a more comfortable position. “But it’s nice to still be in the land of the living.”

 

“We’re glad you pulled through all of this too, Lady Jaye,” Duke added with a smile, from his position leaning against the small window that let a trickle of sunlight into the room.

 

Jaye let the nurse take hold of her wrist and tick off the seconds while she counted up her pulse rate for the charts. She then turned her face to look in Scarlett’s direction again. “Shana, have you seen Flint? Did he come by while I was still under?”

 

“I’m sorry, no,” Scarlett replied carefully. She glanced at Duke, her eyes almost begging him to step in and relieve her from having to tell Jaye the news. “He’s- um- he’s on a mission.”

 

Despite her injuries and being sedated with painkillers since the evacuation from Iraqi territory, Lady Jaye could see in Scarlett’s expressions and heard in her voice that she was holding something back. “What is it?” Jaye asked. “Is something wrong with Flint?”

 

Scarlett clammed up and bowed her head sadly. Duke simply kept his mouth shut and tried to blend into the wall. Lady Jaye’s face belied her concern and agitation that no one was talking.

 

“Come on, you two,” Jaye said slowly. “I thought you were my friends. Don’t bullshit me. I can handle whatever you’ve got to say. Give it to me straight...” Jaye’s mind reeled as she thought about the events between her and Flint that led up to her departure on the “Hatchet One” mission. Unexpectedly, she found herself feeling a tinge of jealousy.

 

“Is that sonofabitch out making points with that Tailwind character again, Scarlett?” Jaye asked in an angry whisper. “Come on, Shana...”

 

“What’s that you say?” Scarlett replied, quite taken aback at the question. She had no idea that Flint and Lady Jaye were fighting about another Joe in the middle of their relationship. “Tailwind was on the mission to pick your team and the Whale up. That’s all I know. Promise.”

 

Lady Jaye glanced in Duke’s direction, unaware that he and Flint had talked about the incident with Tailwind that had drawn her ire. “I’ll talk with you about it some other time, Shana,” she whispered.

 

“Since you asked,” Scarlett interjected. “The news had absolutely nothing to do with Tailwind.” The counter-intelligence expert grabbed Lady Jaye’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m so sorry. Flint was shot down outside of Baghdad while flying a Dragonfly helicopter behind the lines. He was leading the flight of choppers that was tasked to extract the team I went in with. Flint, Crypto and Flint’s green shirt aerial gunner are probably in Cobra hands right now, if they’re not dead.”

 

Lady Jaye’s eyes fell instantly. “Oh... my... God.” Her free hand shot up to cover her mouth and the hand holding onto Scarlett’s squeezed as tight as it could. “Flint could be- dead?”

 

Scarlett clapped both hands around Lady Jaye’s and her eyes began to well up with tears. “There was very little information that we could find out. I tried to get the ground rescue team to haul out to the crash site to secure it. Lift-Ticket sent Windmill in an assault chopper to try a rescue, but the Cobras got to Flint first and drove our guys off. When Flint went down, he went completely off the air, and headquarters hasn’t heard a thing on the TDC base station.”

 

Lady Jaye couldn’t believe her own mind for thinking the worst of Flint instead of hearing Scarlett out. She began to cry and Scarlett reached around her neck with her arms to comfort her. “No. I can’t believe that he’s dead. If there was even a remote chance in hell, he’d be right there, trying to get back to us. I refuse to believe that he’s dead, Shana... I won’t do it.”

 

“I know, girl,” Scarlett replied. “I know in the depths of my heart that Flint and Crypto are both still alive and trying to escape right now.”

 

Lady Jaye looked Duke square in the eyes and her expression became dark. “Duke, I want in on the rescue op. I want to go back to Baghdad and bring them out.”

 

Duke approached the hospital bed from the opposite side and rested a hand gently on Jaye’s forearm. “There’s no way you’re going anywhere until you recover from the surgery. I can’t change or influence that one bit. General Tomahawk won’t even consider letting you out of here to go on a rescue until you’re healed up.”

 

“I don’t want to feel useless lying around in some hospital bed, Duke,” Lady Jaye insisted. “If I have to strip this getup off and steal a set of BDU’s from one of the medics around here, I WILL go and get Flint out.”

 

“I’ll try to make the officers see things our way, Alison,” Duke replied. “But I’ll make no promises. Until we get the word to go after Flint, I want you to stay right here and behave yourself. I will not tolerate any shenanigans, and that’s a direct order from your top kick. I’ll have Falcon moved in here to watch you like a hawk if you don’t want to listen to me.”

 

Lady Jaye closed her eyes and let out a long sigh, as the nurse gently elbowed Duke out of her way. The nurse began to examine the dressings the surgeons had applied over their work and Jaye cringed at the discomfort since her mediations were starting to wear off. “I’ll stay put for now, Duke. I promise.”

 

As Scarlett and Lady Jaye sat together, just sharing their emotional bond as friends, Duke’s TDC vibrated in his pocket. The message on the unit’s display said that he was wanted in the command center. “I have to go over to command, ladies,” he said after studying the TDC display.

 

“I’ll stay here and keep Alison company for a while, if it’s okay,” Scarlett said. Jaye nodded her head in the affirmative, and so did Duke.

 

“I’ll see you both later, then.” Stepping out into the hallway, Duke left the two friends to commiserate and comfort each other.

 

***

 

G.I. Joe Compound

Motor Pool

1035 hours, local time

 

“So, what’s the order of the day, Lootenant Crecelius?” Backstop asked with a lazy drawl, rolling out from under the chassis of a HMMWV Armament Carrier that had been jacked up for repairs.

 

“The boss kept it simple today, Backstop,” Thunderwing replied. “Keep fixing what’s broken, and prepare a dozen tanks and Bradleys for escort duty. We have to move a cargo transfer up from Dhahran in fourteen hours when the U.S.S. Flagg puts in with her battle group. Clutch will be back on the job soon. I want you and Clutch to grab Armadillo and anyone else you need, and get the escort vehicles marshaled by the east end of the motor pool. Otherwise, we’re on new standing orders to get all combat equipment that’s capable of moving and shooting ready to do so. The entire Corps command has stepped up its alert level. We did get word from CENTCOM that Cobra might attempt to spearhead an Iraqi march south across the entire frontier.”

 

“Will do, sir. We’ll be ready,” Backstop replied. “Sir, did you hear of anything going on with buddies being caught behind the lines? There was scuttlebutt in the mess hall this morning from some tired ol’ green shirts that a couple of ours are in Cobra hands.”

 

“I don’t know anything about it, Specialist Levin,” Thunderwing replied. “But if Steeler or Major Storm briefs us steel jockeys about it, I’ll be sure to pass anything along. Let’s get to it, trooper! There’s work to do!”

 

***

 

Hafr-al-Batin Air Base

1100 hours, local time

 

Alert horns sounded across the broad airfield as crash rescue vehicles roared out onto the air base’s network of taxiways. An MH-6K “Little Bird” from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment had declared an emergency while flying a reconnaissance mission in support of a Special Operations team behind enemy lines, and was on its way in to land.

 

The Night Stalkers’ helicopter had encountered a patrol of Cobra FANG II tilt-rotors and had to fight its way south of the Iraqi-Saudi Arabian border under heavy fire. The Cobra chopper crews even had the balls to cross the defensive lines at the Iraqi frontier and weaved their way through the border troops’ Stinger fire and SHORAD air defense systems in order to kill the Special Ops helicopter or strafe its home base.

 

Army Specialist Paige “Hide and Seek” Stevenson gathered up an LBE rig with her basic medical supply pouches and tossed the British-made ‘Bergen’ rucksack with most of her first aid gear onto her back. The morning sun beat down on her face warmly as she geared up in the partial shade of the Joes’ hardened aircraft shelter on the edge of the field. She nodded to a Green Shirt behind the wheel of a Joe HMMWV that she was ready and then leaped onto the rear deck of the utility truck right before it sped off behind the Air Force Oshkosh crash trucks that worked the air base.

 

The MH-6K swept over the Hafr-al-Batin field at low altitude, trailing smoke from several bullet hits in her hydraulics and fuel systems. The helicopter nosed forward, as the pilots desperately urged the bird to stay aloft long enough to reach a grassy patch in between the main runways and taxiways.

 

White plumes of smoke rose from air defense positions outside the airfield, as mobile ADA squads in Avenger and Linebacker vehicles threw up an umbrella of air defense missiles against the pursuing FANG II’s. The airbase defense group was more successful than the field troops when their concentrated missile, 30mm cannon and 50-caliber machinegun fire brought down the flight of Cobra FANG tilt-rotors, flaming them up only three miles from the air base’s outer navigation marker.

 

As the Joe HMMWV sped down the taxiway towards the approaching Little Bird, the helicopter lost all controls and nose-dived into an auxiliary runway, with the engine and fuel bladders bursting into flames.

 

“There!” Hide and Seek yelled to the driver, pointing at the downed chopper. “Take me right up to it and stand by to run for the aid station!”

 

The driver nodded, jerking the steering wheel hard to the left and slamming the gas pedal down to get the Hummer moving at maximum speed down the pavement. As the vehicle accelerated, Specialist Stevenson unfolded two portable litters and stacked them up in the open cargo bed of the vehicle.

 

The Joe vehicle beat the crash rescue trucks to the place where the MH-6K went down. As sirens wailed in the distance, the whine of jet engines abated as the field’s traffic controllers re-routed the taxiing aircraft around the crash location. Hide and Seek leaped off the Hummer and her driver took cover with an M-16 rifle in hand in case a FANG came over the horizon on a strafing run.

 

Hide and Seek had the Hummer’s portable fire extinguisher in hand when she sprinted to the glass nose of the Little Bird. Using one hand to shield her face, she weaved through the clouds of smoke. When her dust goggles became too cloudy to see through, she tore them away and backed up against the cockpit window glass.

 

Yanking the pin out of the extinguisher, Hide and Seek aimed the nozzle at the fire closest to the injured flight crewmen and depressed the trigger. Chemical foam instantly sprayed out of the fire extinguisher and pushed back the licks of flame.

 

When the flames were pushed back and the extinguisher tank ran out, Hide and Seek flung open the starboard cockpit door, reaching in to check on the pilots. Fortunately for those inside, the helicopter had slowed significantly enough when it hit the runway to not have crushed the fragile cockpit framing. At most, the two men inside were stunned.

 

Both men stirred when they felt Hide and Seek’s touch on their faces. She pulled out her saw-toothed Ka-Bar combat knife and made short work of slicing through their safety harnesses. She took the pilot first, from the chopper’s right seat, and dragged him to safety behind the Hummer’s tailgate. After the pilot was safe, she ran back to the cockpit and pulled the co-pilot free of the wreckage, using every ounce of strength she had to bring the second man out to safety as well.

 

“Come on, guys!” Paige urged, helping the men into the cargo bed of the Hummer and onto the litters. She ran around the vehicle to the driver and tapped him on the shoulder, jerking her thumb at the Hummer. “Let’s get the fuck out of this hot zone!” she yelled.

 

The driver nodded and climbed back into the driver’s seat of the vehicle. Hide and Seek leaped into the cargo bed and began to triage the pilots’ injuries just as the lumbering crash rescue trucks sprayed chemical foam and water onto the burning Little Bird.

 

After a few moments of speeding back across the airfield, medical technicians had taken over treating the Night Stalker pilots, and Hide and Seek wiped a patch of sweat from her forehead with a terrycloth towel. She leaned against the Hummer tiredly when she spotted a female officer walking towards the bustle of activity.

 

Hide and Seek slipped the Bergen from her shoulders and dropped it to the ground, straightening up as the female Major made a bee-line for the Hummer. The women traded salutes, and then the Major surveyed the activity around them.

 

“Did you go in by yourself to pull those two chopper jockeys out, Hide and Seek?” the Major asked.

 

Paige nodded. “I sure did, ma’am. If you’ll pardon me for asking, who are you?”

 

“Call me Swansong,” Major Sara Levinson replied. “I work in the S-2 Section with Crypto.” Swansong nodded in the direction of the Air Force ambulances taking the pilots off the tarmac. “That was a damn heroic job you did, Specialist.”

 

“Thanks, Swansong,” Paige replied. “How can I help you?”

 

“I’m afraid I have news for you, Specialist,” Swansong said sadly. “Some of the Joes said you’re close to Crypto.”

 

Paige nodded again. “What’s wrong?”

 

Swansong rested a comforting hand on Hide and Seek’s shoulder. “I’m afraid that the Lieutenant was captured behind enemy lines, infiltrating a Cobra garrison. He was separated from the rest of his mission team and they had to evacuate without him.”

 

“My God, no!” Paige said excitedly. “How far behind the lines is he? If someone will fly me in, I’ll go track him down myself!”

 

“Sorry, no can do, Specialist,” Swansong said quietly. “Crypto was captured outside Baghdad, over two hundred miles northwest of the frontier. I’m so sorry.”

 

Hide and Seek whipped out her Ka-Bar combat knife and gripped it tightly in her hand. Her eyes narrowed angrily. “Not as sorry as those damn Cobras are gonna be when I drop in among ‘em to get my guy back! Get me in on the rescue op, Swansong. Promise me.”

 

“I’ll do what I can, Specialist,” Swansong said. “Come on back to headquarters with me, and we’ll find out what’s going on.”

 

***

 

Saddam Military Prison

Baghdad, Iraq

1330 hours, local time

 

Work crews of Iraqi prisoners were out cleaning the main quad of the prison complex when Major Bludd’s column of three Stuns roared past the main entry gate and up to the administration building. Disheveled and overworked prisoners, dressed in whatever tatters they could scrape together, looked on as Major Bludd’s detachment of Vipers dismounted from their vehicles and trained pairs of wary eyes and loaded AK-74’s at a spread-eagle figure lying across the gun barbettes of the major’s Command Stun.

 

“Wake up, sunshine!” Major Bludd yelled to Flint, rapping the Warrant Officer in the head with the end of a truncheon he had taken from a Desert Scorpion that had approached the detachment to welcome their arrival. “Get your slimy American ass off a’ my vehicle! You’ve reached your new home!”

 

Flint spat a wad of saliva that had been collecting in his mouth while he endured the dehydration of being under the desert sun without being offered even a sip of water from one of the enemy soldiers’ canteens. “Someone can give me a fucking drink of water, and then we’ll talk about me getting off of your precious vehicle!” he managed to growl, as his body stiffened.

 

“You’re defiant until the last, eh, my friend?” Bludd said, reaching for his canteen and sloshing the few ounces of fresh water left inside. He walked over to where Flint had begun to thrash his head about, and in the warrant officer’s view, reached the canteen and its contents towards Flint’s lips.

 

Flint hungrily licked at his parched lips and hoped that the Vipers would cut him loose enough to get a hand around the canteen. Considering the effects of the heat on his body, survival was more important than trying to take Major Bludd out for keeps.

 

With a nod from the Major, two Vipers began to untie Flint’s bonds from the fittings on the Stun that held him secure, leaving the ropes wrapped around his ankles and wrists so that the guards could control him while in transit.

 

Bludd smiled at the desperate facial expressions Flint made, as he tried to will the water out of the major’s canteen. The Cobra mercenary brought the canteen within millimeters of Flint’s mouth and the sweet taste of fresh water was palatable to him even from a distance.

 

“Please... Major, some water- please,” Flint choked.

 

“You haven’t learned the price of defiance, my friend,” Bludd replied, turning the canteen over and letting the fluids inside roll out onto the sand at his feet. “I’ll let the prison staff decide how to treat you.”

 

Flint’s lips turned down in a dry but angry frown. “You... You bastard.” The Vipers that were untying his ropes gave them a tug and Flint slid off the Stun’s bow and onto the ground, landing on his dislocated shoulder. Pain radiated up his arm and down his spine, as Flint’s mouth tried to scream out.

 

“I’ve had enough of this one,” Bludd said with a sneer, looking at Flint’s weakened body lying at his feet. He turned to the Desert Scorpion, who had summoned a trio of his buddies. “He’s all yours. Bring him to your medical dispensary and have him looked at.” Twirling his fist in the air, Bludd shouted for his Vipers to mount up, waiting for the Scorpions to drag Flint into the prison before he leaped into his Command Stun’s driver’s seat and led his column back to Camp Al-Shu’a.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, deep inside Section Seven:

 

Although he was still some measure away from being a hundred percent recovered, Crypto got himself to his feet and climbed down onto the uneven, rocky floor of the cell. Testing his sea legs, and trying to get the lay of the land, he paced off distances around the cell to occupy his mind with the tactical problem of escaping.

 

Fishing into one of the deep cargo pockets in his BDU trousers, Crypto found the subtle tear in the pocket liner that he had cut before leaving KKMC as his secret stash place. Pulling apart the seam, his fingers dipped into the pocket liner and groped around until they wrapped around the small hunk of plastic and circuits that comprised his TDC communicator.

 

Crypto listened intently for footfalls outside the solid cell door while he powered up the communications device and flipped open the thin plastic mouthpiece. He studied the tiny liquid crystal display to see if the unit was automatically registering with a known signal node, such as an American COMSAT, specially-encrypted commercial satellite or the Joes’ long-range base station.

 

The Joes’ TDC units had several significant advantages over commercial cellular telephones. They were designed to work over both civilian and military communications satellite networks, due in part to special electronic coding that was mandatory in all COMSATS of American design. It was technology that civilian digital communications wouldn’t have access to for years - on purpose.

The TDC was nearly impossible to signal trace, decrypt intercepted calls, and jam by conventional military means. In fact, the SIGINT experts at Fort Huachuca and NSA Headquarters in Fort Meade each admitted defeat after spending a month straight trying to perform a stress test on the Joes’ system. It had been a very closely kept secret that the premier signals intelligence crews ended up with egg on their faces, but somewhere in the Pentagon, people still laughed about it. The only drawback was the intrinsic power of the TDC’s battery pack. There were still some places and conditions that a TDC couldn’t defeat in trying to connect to its home network.

 

Crypto’s face fell when the TDC didn’t acquire its connection signal. That meant he was fairly deep in an underground dungeon, or there was sufficient electronic interference or signal loss passing through the entire prison structure for the TDC to be unable to lock onto an Army tactical repeater tower or the encoded relay frequencies of an orbiting satellite. Deciding to save his unit’s battery for as long as possible, he folded the TDC closed, which automatically cut the power, and tucked it back into his pocket.

 

***

 

1400 hours, local time

 

“How is the first prisoner doing, Corporal?” Lieutenant Deming asked of the Medi-Viper when the medic entered the infirmary cell where Flint had been delivered by his guard detail.

 

“He’ll be ready to interrogate whenever you are, ma’am,” the Medi-Viper replied in her Irish accent. “He was up and ‘round when I last checked in on him. He’s quite tricky, but we ‘ave him under control in there.”

 

“Good,” Deming replied, nodding with satisfaction. “Have a look at this one. It looks like he busted his arm when Major Bludd brought him in.”

 

Flint writhed in pain, but was limited in the amount of movement he could achieve because the guards strapped him to the examining table with several sets of heavy leather restraints. The Medi-Viper clucked her tongue softly as she gazed at the injured Warrant Officer’s face and checked his vitals.

 

“Get away from me, you psycho sawbones!” Flint growled through his agony. “I know that even Cobra troops are scared to get treatment from the likes of you!”

 

“Such bothersome fools, you Americans,” the Medi-Viper said under her breath, out of Lieutenant Deming’s earshot. She probed cautiously with her hands around Flint’s shoulder and shook her head when she was satisfied with her examination.

 

“What?” Deming asked from a corner of the cell. “What’s his condition?”

 

“He has dislocated his arm at the shoulder joint,” the Medi-Viper reported. “Along with having obtained numerous other minor injuries all over his body. He’s got a few deep cuts and some bad bruises on his thighs. For a helicopter crash survivor who resisted being brought in, he’s quite lucky.”

 

“How long do you think he’ll need to recuperate before the Baroness can question him?” Deming asked.

 

“I’ll set his dislocation right now and sedate him for the pain,” the Medi-Viper said. “Give him a solid twenty-four hours under my observation, and then you can do with him as you wish. I can treat his other injuries, but he can be questioned while they heal.”

 

“Very good,” Deming said approvingly, turning to leave the cell. “But you can only observe him until oh-nine-hundred. That’s when I was told to expect the Baroness’s arrival. Get to it, Corporal.”

 

“Aye, he’ll be ready for you,” the Medi-Viper said to Deming’s back as she left. Turning her attention back to Flint, the Corporal raised a syringe and jabbed it into a vein just under the surface of the skin. “Now, now. This will help you gut out the pain, boyo. Don’t resist me when I set your shoulder, or it will hurt a helluva lot more.” The Medi-Viper’s eyes narrowed in a threatening expression. “I promise ye that.”

 

Flint shook his head no, while his voice cracked and sounds only came out sporadically. The Medi-Viper held a small plastic cup with cool water to his lips and he drank the liquid like he had never tasted water before in his life.

 

Once Flint had calmed down slightly and resigned himself to letting his mouth rest and re-hydrate, the Medi-Viper cinched tight the restraining straps on the exam table. Although Flint began to feel light headed from the first dose of sedative, he could still feel the pins and needles and discomfort from his arm being out of place.

 

“I’ll just set ye now, boyo,” the Medi-Viper said, bracing herself in a position where she could manhandle the arm and shoulder back into place.

 

“I- I- I can still feel...” Flint tried to manage.

 

“Hush now,” the Medi-Viper ordered, as she pressed hard on Flint’s arm. He screamed out in agony for a second or two, but with a hollow pop, his shoulder was set back into place and much of the pain subsided.

 

“There, there. That wasn’t too bad,” the Medi-Viper concluded, marking a chart up for Flint and then stowing all of her equipment safely into locked cabinets and drawers. “Get some sleep, boyo. I shall see you again soon.”

 

***

 

Al-Mohammed District

Al-Batin, Saudi Arabia

2200 hours, local time

 

The mock kill house that had been established in the uninhabited training area just outside King Khalid Military City appeared out of place when compared to the rickety and often-repaired structures that comprised the majority of the Al-Mohammed District.

 

Ever since the district was designated as a training area for the Royal Saudi Armed Forces and their American counterparts based in KKMC, the expanse of decrepit buildings and sand-blown streets had seen better days. Walls barely stood from being pockmarked over and over from small arms and heavy machinegun fire. Entire structures blasted to pieces by LAW rockets or the guns of main battle tanks had been replaced by cheap wooden mockups or simple, prefabricated shells meant to simulate those buildings all over again.

 

Wrecks of vehicles, both civilian and obsolete military, were strewn about to hinder movement or to use as live fire targets. The place looked like World War III had started and finished there, and for some of the troops that trained in the area, it wasn’t far from the truth.

 

The sun had gone down many hours before, and even though the kill house was one of the few places in Al-Mohammed District with connections for electric lights and plumbing, all of the un-shaded light bulbs were out, despite the minimal handful of windows that could’ve allowed interior light to escape. The structure’s outer floodlights were darkened as well.

 

A soft rustle of fabric was the only sound out of place around the kill house, as a male figure dressed in his tight-fitting black martial arts uniform that covered his entire body silently approached. Although it was limited in armor protection, the ‘gi’ was preferred by some of G.I. Joe’s more shadowy specialists for its unparalleled freedom of movement and flexibility.

 

While technology had been the watchword for most of the regular troops, the men and women of the Funny Platoon were often followers of more esoteric methods. The people that were part of Funny Platoon were primarily the deep penetration operatives that gathered information in the most hostile of situations, along with support personnel that connected that information with the main intelligence and operations efforts of the S-2 (information) and S-3 (tactical operations) sections, SCIF and ASIS (all-source intelligence support) elements, and ultimately, General Tomahawk’s decision-making staff.

 

The real operators of Funny Platoon were the ninjutsu-trained commandos of the former Ninja Force team, along with the other Joe martial artists who had been rigorously brought up to the same standards of stealth and guile, until each was a one-Joe killing machine. Tactical intelligence and counter-intelligence experts like Lady Jaye, Scarlett and Chuckles formed the more overt half of Funny Platoon, but they were also often called upon to tackle conventional missions with regular Joe operational teams.

 

The silent individual crept forward towards a convenient corner of the kill house’s outer wall, measuring every step with care, and he hunched forward to keep as low a profile as possible. Once he reached the corner, the approaching figure stood upright and made himself practically invisible against the corner, swiftly scanning with his hands up and down his torso to make sure everything he needed was in place and incapable of making a noise that would give away his presence.

 

He slipped a hand under the tunic of his gi, withdrawing a coiled length of high-strength para-cord rope from an inside pocket. Playing out one end, he swung it loosely at his feet and then in one great arc, tossed the loose end at the roof of the kill house. In less than a second, the rubber-coated steel grapnel found its mark and held fast without even a telltale thud. The ninja began climbing hand over hand up the wall, using the notches in his tabi socks to guide his feet up the rope while the soft rubber soles of the ninja footwear provided enough traction on the cement wall’s surface to propel him up the rope.

 

Upon reaching the roof, the black-clad man coiled up the climbing line and replaced it into his tunic so as not to leave a trace of his arrival later on. Both hands moved to the middle of his waist, where a well-oiled, hand-crafted wakizashi short sword hung in its scabbard.

 

The blade was drawn quietly, never making a sound against the metal rim of the scabbard. As short swords went, the wakizashi was quite a dangerous weapon by itself in the hands of its expert owner, although the type was shrouded in myth as the little brother of the larger ‘katana’ ninja sword and had been generalized with the stigma of being the last holdout or ‘suicide’ weapon of the ancient Ninja and Samurai warrior.

 

The polished steel blade glistened in the moonlight, having been crafted by traditional Japanese ritualistic sword smiths by folding, pounding and forging the same original metal plate over one thousand times before even honing the blade to its razor sharpness.

 

The ninja kept his wakizashi at a standard ready position, with the blade up and capable of being moved in almost any direction with lightning speed. He crept along the roof of the kill house, groping with his free hand until he found the latch to the roof access panel used by the facilities maintenance personnel to repair the outside lighting system for the structure. He tested the latch with one gentle turn, only to find it locked.

 

Slipping his wakizashi back into its scabbard, the intruder produced a small fabric pouch that had been rolled tightly and tied off with a length of string. Unknotting the string and rolling out the pouch, the ninja withdrew a set of lock-pick tools and had the hatch unlocked within a minute. He returned everything to its place silently before lifting the hatch ever so carefully, making no sounds as he slipped inside and shut the hatch behind him.

 

Once inside the kill house, the ninja drew his wakizashi once more, choosing it over the longer katana since he was in close quarters. He crept along the corridor between the different training rooms, which were laid out in different patterns to simulate typical surroundings that could be encountered in combat. The ninja stopped when he heard the slight sounds of a man breathing deeply from one of the rooms, apparently asleep.

 

Scanning around the area quickly with his eyes, the ninja didn’t find a means to enter the room undetected other than the door, so he steeled himself to take the direct approach. He spent a few heartbeats meditating, to bring himself to the higher level of calm needed to think clearly should the heat of battle develop beyond the door. His black-gloved hand reached for the metal door knob, and the ninja’s eye scanned the room through the crack of the door’s edge.

 

It was pitch black inside the room. The lack of windows made it so that no natural light entered from outside. The ninja couldn’t see any indicators of how the furnishings were laid out, so he resorted to another piece of modern trickery. A small, monocular night vision device was slipped out of a hidden pocket in his gi, and the ninja finally got the look he needed through the equipment’s green-glowing eyepiece.

 

A single person was inside the room, which was laid out like a row of jail cells. He sat at a guard’s desk, upright, but with the body posture of a man sleeping. The ninja slipped his gear back into place and put away his wakizashi. For his attack, he decided upon thrown weapons to complete his task.

 

The door was opened about halfway, and the ninja slipped into the small cell block, his right arm raised over his head. His hand had palmed three shuriken, black steel throwing stars, from a hidden pouch in his sleeve. The sleeping form stirred at the end of the room, just as the ninja struck, throwing the shuriken hard in a deadly arc towards the target’s center of mass.

 

But the man sitting in the room was another ninja, who sensed the attack and ducked behind the desk he sat behind for cover. After the three throwing stars imbedded themselves into the plaster wall behind the desk, the ninja leapt out. Bracing one hand on the wooden desktop and moving the other behind his back, he flipped over the desk and landed smoothly in the open “hallway” with a wakizashi of his own drawn out for battle.

 

The intruder’s wakizashi was drawn once more in a flowing move, as if the weapon was simply an extension of the wielder’s hand. The two oiled and polished blades flashed once, striking each other with a spark from the velocity at which they connected. As soon as the battle had begun, both ninja stepped back, replaced their weapons into their scabbards, and bowed respectfully. The ninja who played the guard inside the kill house snapped on the room’s light bulbs with a tiny remote control.

 

“You almost had me, sword brother,” Storm Shadow said, leaning back onto the guard desk and smiling under his headgear. “But I knew you were coming when you snagged the roof with your grapnel. Then again, not every man has the ability of ‘The Ear that Sees’.”

 

The black-uniformed intruder produced a G.I. Joe-issue TDC and plugged a small chip into its utility port. The voice synthesizer chip came to life as soon as the ninja pressed on two transducers sewn into the neck of his battle dress. “You were almost too slow yourself, Tommy,” Snake-Eyes replied through the artificial voice box. “My throwing stars almost gave you a haircut on the way down.”

 

Storm Shadow laughed as he walked with Snake-Eyes over to the wall where Snakes’ three shuriken had created large cracks in the plaster. “Why don’t you throw these things a bit harder next time, Snake-Eyes? This room could use some air conditioning!”

 

Storm Shadow, Sergeant 1st Class Thomas Arashikage, gently worked the throwing stars free from the crumbling plaster and handed them back to Snake-Eyes before continuing. “Has this exercise adequately cleared your head from being cooped up in the planning room all day?”

 

Snake-Eyes nodded. “We should get back. There’s still a lot of work to finish. Plus the others might want to get out and have a little workout session of their own.”

 

Storm Shadow clapped his sword brother on the shoulder and turned off the light as the two commanders of the G.I. Joe Funny Platoon departed the practice room. When darkness enveloped the building once more, the two ninja disappeared into the night.

 

***

 

Section Seven - Saddam Military Prison

Baghdad, Iraq

27 July, 2002

0600 hours, local time

 

Lieutenant Deming cracked her knuckles and smiled when the Techno-Viper detachment finished unpacking and assembling a series of nasty torture devices to use against the Joe prisoners. They ranged from simple cutting tools, psychedelic drugs and heat guns up to the exotic torture devices, like metal bed racks wired to twelve-volt truck batteries, Iron Maidens, Turkish mechanical thrones and containers full of venomous snakes and scorpions.

 

Satisfied with the implements that had been delivered to her, Deming snapped her fingers and ordered up a pair of guards to fetch Crypto from his infirmary cell.

 

Crypto was busying himself with the array of drawers and cabinets that lined one wall of the infirmary cell when the guards arrived. The Medi-Viper had been nauseatingly efficient by locking up all of the potential weapons or tools that he could possibly steal or use on one of the guards to affect an escape.

 

The steel door to the cell opened with a heavy squeal after at least two pairs of footfalls thudded down the dungeon corridor. Abandoning his search through the supply cabinets, Crypto hustled over to the examination table, leaning against it to feign weakness.

 

“Oh, look,” said one of the Desert Scorpions that stood outside the unlocked cell door. “The little Joe chickadee is trying to fly the coop.” He unclipped a long stick from his web belt and held it in front of him.

 

The other Desert Scorpion followed suit, stepping into the cell with his nightstick-sized weapon held out in both hands. “Let’s go, G.I. Joe. You have an appointment with Lieutenant Deming. Don’t give us any trouble.”

 

“Why, guys, I don’t know what in the world you could mean by that...” Crypto taunted, keeping both Cobra desert troopers in front of him as he turned his back to the bolted-down examination table.

 

The guard inside the cell raised his stick, preparing to use it for leverage to force Crypto to submit. “Just turn around and keep your hands where we can see them. We don’t want to have to kick your ass.”

 

“But that’s exactly what you’ll have to do to get me in front of that bitch commander of yours,” Crypto snarled, refusing to turn meekly around. When his back was to the exam table where it met the wall, he raised his hands defensively, acting like he wasn’t going to put up a fight.

 

Crypto stared right into the Desert Scorpion’s eyes as he moved in to press his baton against the officer’s chest. When he felt the pressure of the baton against his breast bone, Crypto swung his hands in short arcs underneath the guard’s arms and popped them up vertically into his chin. The sudden blow took the Desert Scorpion by surprise and he released the baton to protect his throat and grab onto Crypto’s wrists.

 

The naval officer was faster than the Cobra guard, and had his hands clear of the soldier and down by his sides just in time to catch the dropped baton. He turned it in one smooth motion and thrust the stick into the guard’s belly. The Desert Scorpion grunted in agony after feeling the weapon strike him.

 

Keeping the baton in one hand and reaching for the guard’s uniform lapel with the other, Crypto brought the stick behind the guard’s head and reached up with his free hand to grab the loose end. He used the baton like a garrote, catching the enemy trooper by the back of his neck and drawing him inward. Crypto’s knee came up as the guard fell forward, and the soldier took another heavy hit in the groin, which doubled him over and Crypto sprawled the guard out across the exam table, gasping for breath.

 

The second guard charged into the room, pressing on a plastic nub imbedded in his baton’s handle. The weapon began to hum softly as the Desert Scorpion aimed for Crypto’s left side, which was partially exposed to him.

 

Crypto whirled around to face the charging guard. He hadn’t yet figured out that the baton in his hands was a Cobra stun stick like the one the enemy soldier had just activated. Crypto swung the weapon in a sweeping arc to parry the thrust from the Desert Scorpion away from his torso, forcing the enemy’s weapon into contact with the metal exam table’s frame.

 

Sparks flew from the end of the stun stick when its bare metal emitter came close enough to the metal in the exam table to send an arc of blue electricity into the conductive parts of the bed. The Desert Scorpion that had fallen onto the bed received the full dosage of stun charge, which had been enhanced by the fact that the exam table had electrical wiring running through it for plugging in portable lamps and medical tools.

 

The resulting electrical shock, which was normally mild when passing through a light conductor such as skin, was increased tenfold and Crypto’s nostrils could detect the pungent scent of burning flesh as the stun stick electrocuted the guard on the exam table.

 

The horrified guard tried to jerk the stun stick free of Crypto’s parrying movement and was distracted enough to take a left roundhouse punch to the side of the face.

 

Rather than crumpling to the ground, the Desert Scorpion let his jaw take the brunt of Crypto’s punch, letting his stun stick fall to the floor as he grabbed for Crypto’s. A safety feature in the power nub killed the electricity that flowed through the weapon as soon as it left the hand of its user, so the arcing of power ceased before the baton hit the floor.

 

Crypto lunged for the Desert Scorpion’s neck when the soldier successfully relieved the Joe of his baton. Crypto had been holding the baton backwards when he parried with it, so the handle and power nub ended up right in the guard’s hand when he grabbed for it. And since the stun stick was in between the grappling men, its business end was right where the guard needed it to be. Ignoring the possibility of shocking himself, the guard jammed his thumb onto the power nub and a stun charge of electricity surged into Crypto’s abdomen.

 

Crypto felt the violent spasms in his gut when the stun stick passed its charge into his body. His stomach felt like it was being stretched out in ten different directions at once, and involuntary muscles like his diaphragm and even the small ones in his throat that controlled gagging, reacted automatically. He felt like he couldn’t draw a breath, and his guts heaved like he was about to puke, but he could only manage regurgitating a spray of bile. The pain of the stun stick was intense and debilitating, since that was the purpose for its design.

 

Crypto folded like a cheap envelope, falling to the floor with a thud. His body shook and spasmed as he curled into a fetal position, unable to suppress the agonizing sensations delivered by the stun stick’s electrical discharge. After a few heartbeats, the guard let the power nub go and the electrical impulses ceased. Crypto still twitched from the shocking of smaller involuntary muscles and the burning sensation that his entire nervous system felt all at once.

 

The Desert Scorpion got to his feet and shook his head, pulling a pair of handcuffs out of a utility pouch and snapping them around Crypto’s wrists. Now alone with his task, the guard hauled Crypto into a wheelchair that had been parked in the hallway and pushed him out the cell door, motioning for a guard farther down the hall to call for a morgue team to pick up his dead partner.

 

***

 

0615 hours, local time

 

“What kept you, trooper?” Deming asked the Desert Scorpion when he finally wheeled Crypto through the door of the interrogation room. Her lips immediately turned to a frown when she saw him slumped over and only semi-conscious. “What the hell happened to him?”

 

“He tried to escape when we arrived at the infirmary cell to collect him,” the guard reported, wheeling Crypto up next to a free-standing, simple metal chair. “We drew down with stun sticks, but the Joe overpowered my partner and relieved him of his weapon.”

 

“Where is your partner now?” Deming asked, raising an eyebrow.

 

“Dead,” the Desert Scorpion replied dryly. “The fuckin’ Joe electrocuted him through the exam table.” The guard covered his part in the other guard’s death very well, since Crypto had really only parried a thrust from the guard’s charged stun stick.

 

“Humph,” Deming grunted, unaffected by the news of her guard’s demise. “He deserved it for being too slow.”

 

As Crypto began to stir, the Cobra trooper hauled him off the wheelchair and slammed him down onto the metal chair, forcing his arms behind the chair back where they were cuffed to its frame. “Your spree of killing Cobra troops ends here, American bastard,” the Desert Scorpion spat before stepping away from the chair.

 

Lieutenant Deming dismissed the guard with a wave of her hand once Crypto was secured to the chair, and the Desert Scorpion withdrew, taking the wheelchair out of the room with him. Deming walked around the Joe prisoner, looking the naval officer up and down, studying every square inch of him.

 

Crypto was still weak and groggy from the intense shock of the stun stick, so Deming located a first aid kit and popped a smelling salt under his nostrils. The inhaled stimulant snapped Crypto back into coherency as his eyes darted nervously about to survey his new surroundings. Crypto’s eyes were filled with the imposing view of Lieutenant Deming standing over him. She reached a gloved hand down to cup his chin and brought his eyes up to meet hers, where she stared into them with a burning look of determination.

 

“Welcome,” Deming said in a soft, hospitable sounding voice. “I hope that the Medi-Viper has taken good care of you.”

 

Crypto kept his mouth shut. Despite enduring a lot of physical discomfort, he knew from his training not to volunteer anything to his interrogator. He had to make her sweat every ounce of anything she wanted out of him.

 

Deming took out a clipboard and sat at a small desk that faced Crypto’s seat. “I guess we should start with the basics. I shouldn’t need to even ask, since you American commando types know the Big Four from rote.”

 

Crypto remained silent.

 

Deming sighed while she uncapped her cheap ball pen and scribbled at a sheet of note paper. “Your name, please?”

 

Crypto hung his head and looked at the floor.

 

“Must you be difficult about everything?” Deming asked, raising her eyes to observe Crypto’s passive resistance. “Just say your god-damn name so we can get on with this.”

 

Crypto didn’t comply. He simply rolled his eyes and kept quiet.

 

Deming got up from the desk and walked around to Crypto, standing before him. She shoved his face to one side and reached down his BDU shirt, finding the government-issue dog tags that hung from his neck on their metal chain. Gathering them up in her hand, she yanked the tags away from him, breaking the chain from the back of his neck and leaving a red welt behind.

 

Deming returned to the desk and studied the three dog tags she relieved from Crypto. Two of the stamped steel tags read the same, since they were Crypto’s mission dog tags. Unlike normal American tags, his were very simple. They had only his code name, the branch of service he was from (the U.S. Navy), and a bogus serial number that coincided with General Tomahawk’s locked personnel files. They were designed to identify a Joe in the field without allowing any of his classified personal information to be revealed, even if he was discovered by a friendly unit and needed assistance.

 

The third dog tag was the battered one he carried for luck, the one that belonged to the late Yeoman 1st Class Penelope Scott. She had been his partner on a mission almost nine years prior, and her death still haunted Crypto’s dreams.

 

“You really don’t look much like a ‘Penelope Scott’ to me, G.I. Joe,” Deming concluded out loud after looking over the tags in her hand. “So I shall rightly assume they call you Crypto, of the United States Navy.” She set the dog tags on the desk and jotted down some notes for herself. “It’s funny how there’s no rank insignia on your combat uniform. But then again, that’s a page out of ‘Espionage for Dummies’, Chapter One. Now, why don’t you fill in the rest for me so we can get on with business, huh? How about giving me your real name, rank, and serial number, for starters?”

 

Crypto blinked once, his eyes tearing slightly from the ampoule of smelling salts Deming used to revive him. Long, slow breaths made his nostrils flare out slightly. But his mouth stayed shut.

 

Deming knew it was all a tactic to counter the enemy interrogator, a skill that was taught to American Special Forces, spies from the CIA, and many others who might be caught in a situation like Crypto’s current predicament. “Very well,” she said across the desk. “I will be patient. But rest assured, I will know everything I want to know about you, whether it comes out of your mouth or out of Cobra’s computers.”

 

She leaned to one side and opened up a drawer, where a tiny, palm-sized digital camera had been deposited. She aimed the device and snapped several shots of Crypto, from many angles.

 

“When you start to get uncomfortable or need to use the head, let me know,” Deming said calmly, showing no hint of frustration or anger at Crypto’s resistance. “But you will have to give in order for me to show you some compassion in return. I’ll be back after we run your images through Cobra’s biometrics databases and compare them to a few resources that we’ve penetrated over in Washington. Until then, enjoy your quiet time.”

 

Deming left the interrogation room, posting a guard inside the door to watch Crypto as he remained restricted to the stiff-backed metal chair.

 

***

 

A few moments later, in a communications room:

 

Lieutenant Deming handed the digital camera over to a Techno-Viper, who downloaded the images of Crypto she had taken into a terminal that was hot-linked to Cobra’s vast intelligence databases networked in hidden citadels around the world. It had only taken a few seconds to return a match, right from a phantom server Cobra had installed in Baghdad as a ‘copycat’ when they sold the Saddam government a number of computer systems for their Information Ministry (really the national intelligence service and secret police apparatus) over ten years prior.

 

“Ma’am, look here,” the Techno-Viper reported, pointing at a display that had come from the Baghdad copycat server. Crypto’s biometrics matched up with a grainy, low-res scan of a photo taken in 1993, from the very prison they were occupying.

 

Deming was very interested in what she saw. The old photo in the database looked like a younger version of Crypto, despite it being no more than a grainy scan of a 35mm photo printed on cheap photographic paper and withered by age. Regardless of the image’s quality, Deming could tell from the dark, thoughtful eyes and neutral expression that she had the same man nine years later.

 

“Start a global database sweep, Techno-Viper,” Deming ordered, whirling around on her heel to walk over to a large laser printer set in a corner of the room. “Print out everything you can for dossier matches on him and get the materials to me in the interrogation room. Give me that data sheet and the archived image for now. I think I can use it.” In seconds, the laser printer came to life, spitting out five pages of neatly printed text and two color photos from the biometrics matching system.

 

While Deming collected the papers and a manila folder to carry them in, a cellular phone clipped to her utility belt began to ring. She snatched it up and flipped open the cover, quietly responding to the called with “This is Lieutenant Deming.”

 

“Deming, it’s Baroness,” the Baroness said over the wireless line. “I’ll be there momentarily for a report, but I must attend to other business before tomorrow. Has Major Bludd delivered Flint to the prison yet?”

 

“Affirmative, Baroness,” Deming replied. “The Medi-Viper has him under sedation for the next twenty-four hours while he recovers from a dislocated shoulder. I’ve just begun working up the one we captured inside the underground bunker at Camp Al-Shu’a. It seems he’s crossed paths with Cobra in this part of the world before. We’re getting a dossier together right now.”

 

“Very good,” the Baroness replied. “You shall be in charge of interrogating the infiltrator then. If you do a good job with him, I’m sure a healthy bonus for you can be arranged with Cobra Commander. I want Flint for myself. He is a veteran Joe and will likely resist you beyond your abilities. Report directly to me after I’ve arrived, should you come across any new developments.”

 

“Very well, Baroness,” Deming said, nodding as the senior-most Cobra intelligence operative disconnected the call. Before leaving the communications room, she chucked the Techno-Viper on the shoulder.

 

“You’ve got a big job, trooper,” she said. “Snap to and get me that information, pronto!”

 

***

 

Main Briefing Room, G.I. Joe Command Center

King Khalid Military City, Saudi Arabia

0900 hours, local time

 

General Tomahawk, Colonel Courage and Duke sat side by side along a table which had manila folders and maps scattered across its surface. The Joe leaders were poring over the notations and operational plans as they waited for the representatives of their Funny Platoon to show up and give them the brief-back that was the result of the ninja commandos’ secluded planning sessions that spanned the last twenty-four-plus hours.

 

A knock sounded at the door, and Duke walked over to answer it, checking first through a peephole to see who was on the other side. When he saw that Snake-Eyes, Storm Shadow, Swansong and CIA Agent Jennifer Guilford were waiting there, the top kick opened the door and motioned for the green shirts guarding the conference room to let everyone enter.

 

Once the conference room’s door closed behind the group, the green shirts physically blocked the entrance with their bodies, locked and cocked their assault rifles, and set steely looks on their faces. They were ordered to give no one else access to the room while the brief-back was in progress.

 

Everyone in the room took a moment to take some refreshments, fresh coffee and food brought in from the mess facility before being seated. Once the cluster of people surrounded all of the briefing materials, General Tomahawk silenced the room with a wave of his hand and motioned to Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow.

 

“Okay, commandos, the floor is yours,” Tomahawk said. “Let’s hear how you’re going to pull this rescue off.”

 

Storm Shadow rested his elbows on the long briefing table and began the brief-back with a standard METT-T format. “Well, gentlemen and ladies, let’s start with the basics...”

 

“Mission: Tactical infiltration into the city of Baghdad, surveillance of any location identified to potentially serve as detention facility for G.I. Joe prisoners, location of same prisoners, and direct assault to facilitate their escape from enemy hands.”

 

“Enemy: Intelligence estimates indicate at least one regular Iraqi Army Corps of three mechanized infantry divisions, plus several independent and Republican Guard brigades, a large paramilitary force, and significant Cobra military presence estimated at a 5,000-man combat brigade and 1,000-man command and control element. Aw, shucks. Simply put, we’re talking about a whole boatload of armed hostiles all over the city. There’s no support and it’s definitely Indian Country in there.”

 

“Time: As per command, we were ordered to plan this action to execute ASAFP.”

 

“Terrain: The city of Baghdad is a built-up area. This leaves us planning for three-dimensional operations, considering movement in any direction, including underground. Combat action is likely to be according to MOUT tactics and procedures.”

 

“And finally, Troops: In order to successfully complete the rescue operation, the entire commando element of Funny Platoon will be employed, numbering (bookmark) ninja.”

 

Tomahawk and Duke nodded at the same time. “Okay, Storm Shadow, everything’s kosher so far,” Duke said across the table. “Let’s move on to your OPORD.”

 

Snake-Eyes turned on his TDC voice chip and laid down a sheaf of papers before addressing the group. “We have devised a two-fold plan to infiltrate the Funny Platoon’s commando group into Baghdad. We’re going to intentionally split the group up and penetrate the frontier of western and northwestern Iraq independently. Once we have made our way into Baghdad undetected, one or both sub-elements will complete the operation. Everyone was involved in the headwork to plan our approach so even if compromised, any survivors could complete the task ahead of us.”

 

The G.I. Joe team’s premier commando fanned out the sheets of paper he had brought into two piles. Before speaking, he smoothed out his camouflage uniform and adjusted the thin rubber mask that approximated his facial features before the accident that had disfigured him for life.

 

“I will lead one element,” Snake-Eyes said, “which will need to be delivered to Amman, Jordan. Intelligence indicates that the Red Crescent has been basing evacuation and humanitarian relief flights at the city’s international airport. Civilian airliners leave Amman for Baghdad International once or twice a day, to deliver medical materials. They return with civilian evacuees, and both Cobra and the Iraqi armed forces have been leaving them alone for quite some time. With assistance from the Jordanian intelligence service, which has committed their full support, my team will be stowed away on an inbound flight and then take on disguises as airport cargo handlers at Baghdad International long enough to obtain a vehicle and head into the city. We can also carry a small amount of specialized equipment and weapons in the cargo container, but we’ve made all our plans assuming that we’d scrounge for everything we need in-country, including most of our weaponry, food and supplies.”

 

Duke nodded with understanding and then looked towards Colonel Courage and Tomahawk, whose faces had impressed expressions on them. Storm Shadow stepped up to the table once more to pick up where Snake-Eyes left off.

 

The Arashikage clansman straightened a wrinkle in his battle dress uniform and then pushed his stack of papers at the command group. “My team will fly via a U.S. Air Force transport to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, where a number of our fighter units are flying sorties. From there, we will be taken by a contact from the CIA field station to a petroleum company near the border. This particular company has been photographed by the media numerous times sending convoys of tanker trucks to Baghdad where they load up with crude oil to sell on the black market, avoiding the UN export restrictions. The company is one of a handful of black market fronts that has been feeding hard currency into the Iraqi economy since the UN trade embargoes were set in place. The CIA has penetrated the fuel company and has a driver who works the Baghdad run. He will carry us across the border in his fuel truck and bring us into the city.”

 

Storm Shadow looked to Snake-Eyes for input, and the silent ninja master nodded his head for him to continue. “Once we’re infiltrated in the city, we will make contact with one of five separate contacts from CIA Agent Guilford’s network and establish our base camp. For security reasons, we will choose the contact, and each one will have a totally different profile of meeting time and place according to their daily routine. If one or more of them gets compromised, the whole mission will not be blown. Upon confirming the definite locations of Flint, Crypto and Sergeant Wiley, we will penetrate the holding facility and make good their escape and evacuation back to friendly territory. Our exfiltration plan will remain in Snake-Eyes’ and my heads for now, in case we have to improvise along the way.”

 

General Tomahawk studied the notes and maps, rubbing his chin as he thought about any strings he might have to pull with CENTCOM before setting the entire package onto the briefing table. “Very well, gentlemen. Your plan looks sound. Now I don’t need to stress the dangers of this operation, or the fact that you’ll have limited support should something go wrong. But I know that your group has never failed on a high-risk mission yet. The operation is approved.

 

The general held up his hand to make sure no one started moving until he was finished speaking. “I’ll cover your asses with CENTCOM if they give me any static about putting you over the border. But I’m going to leave you with one suggestion. In the event that we can’t pull any official strings to get your teams to their jump off points, see what you can do about getting yourselves there on your own, just in case. Despite anything the top brass might say, I want our buddies back safely and out of Cobra’s hands. Everyone in the room must keep this under your hats. Don’t even tell other Joes about the op or who’s involved, in case the Funny Platoon has to deploy ‘totally black’. You’re all dismissed, gentlemen and ladies. Thanks again, and good luck. YO, JOE!”

 

***

 

Section Seven

Saddam Military Prison

0900 hours, local time

 

Lieutenant Deming returned to the interrogation room where Crypto still sat, stoically enduring being cuffed to the uncomfortable chair. She sat down at the desk across from her prisoner with a self-satisfied grin on her face.

 

“You don’t look very comfortable, Crypto,” she said, looking the officer over. “Are you sure you don’t want to speak to us? Don’t you want to ask someone to let you relieve yourself? I’d hate for you to soil the only clothes you’ll have to wear during your stay in Section Seven.”

 

Crypto stayed mentally focused, watching Deming pull out a glossy sheet of photo paper from the stack of materials she had brought into the room with her. She turned the glossy so that he could view it. Printed on the paper was a copy of the grainy image taken of him the last time he was in Baghdad, while executing the ultra-secret Operation “Megiddo”.

 

“We do know you, Crypto,” Deming said. “Apparently, you’ve caused Cobra quite a stir in this part of the world once before. And we don’t need to ask you the Geneva Convention’s big four questions. They all came up in your Cobra dossier.”

 

Crypto finally opened his mouth to speak. “Okay, so you know that I’m a Navy Lieutenant. Big deal. You sorry sacks of shit don’t subscribe to the Geneva Convention anyway. I’d be surprised if you even let the Iraqi authorities know you’re holding an American officer down here for interrogation. Everyone knows how well you share with your supposed allies.”

 

“They know what they need to know, but that’s irrelevant to our purpose for being together,” Deming said.

 

Crypto smiled evilly, and launched into a recitation of the big four, the only information that an enemy captor could demand of him that he would give. “Crypto, Lieutenant, United States Navy. Serial number is zero-one-three-Charlie-Yankee-zero-zero-zero-one. Date of birth, twenty-nine April, nineteen seventy-three.”

 

“Let’s cut through the bullshit, shall we?” Deming said, moving around the table to straddle the chair in which Crypto sat. “What was your mission at the Cobra garrison?”

 

“Crypto... Lieutenant... United States Navy...”

 

Deming reared back on the heels of her combat boots, swinging her red-gloved hand down and smacking Crypto hard on the side of his face. “Let’s try that again. What G.I. Joe unit are you with? Did you think we couldn’t find out that you went black and joined the Joe team?”

 

Crypto kept his chin up and spat a few drops of saliva out. “Crypto... Lieutenant... United States Navy...”

 

Deming slapped Crypto with a backhanded blow from the other direction. “I can keep this up longer than you can endure it, Crypto. Save yourself the trouble.”

 

“Stick it where the sun don’t shine, Cobra!” Crypto spat. “Crypto... Lieutenant... United States Navy...”

 

Deming balled her right hand into a fist, hauled back and slugged Crypto squarely in the mouth. His head snapped back and a thin line of blood trickled from his lower lip. “Talk, damn you!” Deming yelled into Crypto’s face. “What was your mission at Camp Al-Shu’a?”

 

“I was on a scorpion tasting tour,” Crypto said with a sneer. “They sure taste damn good in these parts, especially with a little hot sauce. They go nicely with a cup of sweat-soaked desert sand.”

 

Deming forced herself to calm down, stepping away from Crypto’s chair and calling for a pair of strong guards. “Vipers - get him up off the chair. Strap him upright over there.” She pointed to a bare metal bed rack that leaned against a mattress which was placed on the wall for insulation. The bed frame had wires running to a hand-thrown contact switch and a bank of six 12-volt truck batteries.

 

The Vipers hauled Crypto to his feet after releasing his wrists from the handcuffs and the chair. The officer willed his legs to go limp, forcing the enemy troops to drag him across the room. They stood him against the bed rack and placed his wrists and ankles into leather straps, which they cinched tight.

 

Lieutenant Deming dismissed the guards and stood facing Crypto once more. Her dark brown eyes stared intensely at the defiant Joe. “You know what one of these contraptions does, Crypto,” she said. “We had you pegged as an intelligence type in ninety-three, so I’m sure you’ve even used one of these on prisoners, at some point in time.”

 

Deming ran her fingernail down Crypto’s arm, tracing a path from the tips of his fingers to his heart. “I hope you have a high tolerance for pain. That way I can enjoy this a lot longer, before you start talking. Your defiant attitude will not be acceptable here.”

 

A knock sounded at the interrogation room door, and one of the Viper guards entered the room with a written message. After Deming read the scrawled note, she crumpled it up in her hand and looked Crypto in the eyes once more.

 

“Why don’t you hang around and be uncomfortable for a while?” she said. “I’m going to go talk with Cobra Commander about you. Think hard about refusing to answer my questions.”

 

Leaving the Viper to watch Crypto, Deming left the room and turned down the hall to visit the communications area. She returned within a few moments, carrying a laptop computer fitted with a web-cam and wireless modem. When she set it on the desk with the tiny camera facing Crypto, the Joe officer could see the hooded face of Cobra Commander on the laptop’s monitor.

 

Crypto’s eyes narrowed at the sight of the Joes’ mortal enemy, as Deming leaned against the wall of the interrogation room. She rested her hand on the switch that controlled the flow of electricity from the batteries into the rack that Crypto was strapped to.

 

“Let me add my welcome to that of Lieutenant Deming, Crypto,” Cobra Commander said from within his command center elsewhere in Baghdad. “I trust my forces have been quite hospitable towards you. Why don’t we talk about why you’ve invaded the sovereign country of Cobra’s ally and tried to go tear-assing around my garrison, hmm?”

 

“The Lord is my shepherd,” Crypto replied. “I shall not want. He maketh me to lie in green pastures and he leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake...”

 

“What?” Cobra Commander bellowed. “Deming, what is this drivel?”

 

“The naval officer is reciting Psalm 23 from the Bible, Commander,” Deming replied. “He’s been rambling on ever since I brought him in for interrogation. I have yet to get a straight answer out of him.”

 

“Bah!” the Commander shouted angrily, tossing a chalice full of wine against the wall, in the room where he was sitting. “Teach him to show some respect, Lieutenant! Teach him not to defy me!”

 

“Yes, Commander,” Deming responded with a smile. She threw the switch near her hand and closed the circuit between the truck batteries and the bed rack.

 

Crypto’s muscles all tensed at once when the electrical charge passed through the circuit and into his body. He wanted to scream, but his throat muscles contracted on their own and he found his voice unusable.

 

After a few seconds of voltage, Deming threw the switch back and cut the power. Crypto’s head hung over his chest as soon as the electricity ceased and he panted to draw a breath of fresh air into his lungs. He smelled the scent of singed body hairs and scorched layers of outer skin from where the backs of his bare legs and arms were in direct contact with the bed frame and had absorbed the voltage from the torture device.

 

“Now, let’s try again,” Cobra Commander said. “Tell me, what were you doing here? What are G.I. Joe’s plans of attack for Baghdad?”

 

Crypto shook his head once, and Deming landed a punch sideways along his jaw, sending a spray of spittle and blood across the floor. She grabbed Crypto’s chin and raised his eyes to the web-cam. “Speak!” Deming ordered. “Speak, or you’ll get another dose of electricity!”

 

Crypto drew in a breath and made like he was going to talk again. “Yea, though I walk through the valley, in the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil... least of all, a nest of fucking Cobras... for thou art with me.”

 

Deming struck Crypto once more with a backhanded slap across his face, leaving a welt of deep crimson over the other facial marks he had obtained. “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me... Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil, and my cup runneth over.”

 

“Give him another,” Cobra Commander said, his voice showing signs of frustration at Crypto’s audacity in resisting. Deming moved to grab onto the switch and was ready to throw it. Cobra Commander screamed through the video link, “Talk, you American bastard! Talk!”

 

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” Crypto said, finishing his prayer with a cough and spitting out some blood from a gash inside his mouth where he had accidentally bitten down on the soft flesh inside his cheek.

 

Deming shook her head, surprised that anyone would have the balls to feed a line to Cobra Commander while knowing what would happen. She threw the switch again and electricity coursed through Crypto’s body. His entire muscular system shook violently in spasms, and his eyes rolled back into his head. After she cut the power, Crypto hung practically limp from the leather straps.

 

Deming motioned for the guards to bring in a gurney and to take Crypto down from the bed rack. “I’m sorry, Commander. This one may take some time to break. He’s been well conditioned. We’ll try another method when he regains consciousness.”

 

Cobra Commander stopped the Lieutenant with a wave of his hand. “Do what you want to him, Deming. And take all the time you need,” the Commander told the Crimson Guard officer. “The Baroness will deal with Flint when she arrives there tomorrow. Compared to the third in command of the entire G.I. Joe force, this Crypto character is insignificant. Make him die slowly.”

 

“As you command, leader,” Deming replied, raising her right hand up from in front of her chest in the Cobra salute. “All hail, mighty Cobra!”

 

After the commander disconnected the transmission, Deming walked over to the gurney and stroked Crypto’s cheek. The surface of his flesh felt warm to the touch and his chest moved while his lungs took in labored breaths, but he was out for the count. “You will learn not to trifle with us, Crypto. You WILL learn.” She nodded at the guards, who were poised to roll the gurney out into the hall. “Get him out of my sight.”

 

***

 

Section Seven, Main Detention Area

0948 hours, local time

 

A pair of burly Desert Scorpions dragged Flint along the dark corridor of the Saddam Military Prison facility’s underground interrogation dungeon known as ‘Section Seven’, not taking very good care to keep their prisoner unharmed.

 

Since being treated for his dislocated shoulder and the other minor injuries, the guards had re-bound him at the wrists and ankles with heavy ropes in order to move him to the main cells. Flint had little choice but to struggle to get free or hang limp and take the bruises as the Cobra troopers tossed him against craggy stone walls or dropped him bodily onto the uneven floors.

 

The enemy’s biggest mistake thus far regarding Flint’s capture was in not searching him very carefully after the events at the crash site of his Dragonfly helicopter or his escape attempt from the Cobra garrison and construction site at Camp Al-Shu’a. Because he wore a very baggy Nomex flight suit over a set of lightweight battle dress utilities, the enemy failed to locate his TDC communicator, which he had hidden clipped to his underwear and pressed tightly against his body.

 

A full strip search would have turned the device up long ago, and Flint would’ve no longer had the sliver of hope to hang onto that he would get an opportunity to contact his headquarters and call for help, or at least tell someone he was alive and his gunner, Sergeant Wiley, was dead. The Cobras had separated him from his flight suit, weapons and survival equipment; however, not relieving him of the BDU’s underneath and his communicating device was a critical error.

 

Flint hoped beyond hope that the dragging and beating didn’t reveal the hiding place of his TDC to the guards, or worse, break it so that he couldn’t use it to allow a rescue party to home in on him later.

 

“Didn’t you stupid pricks graduate elementary school?” Flint taunted angrily as he was dragged around a particularly sharp-edged corner. He bent at the waist as he felt the hard edge of the stone wall scraping at his midsection, but the guards just kept on moving. “You were ordered not to mess me up!”

 

“Shut up, prisoner!” one of the Desert Scorpions ordered, backhanding Flint across the face and slamming him up against the wall. “We weren’t ordered to kill you. But when you struggle to get free, we can’t be responsible when you fall and hit your head or lose your balance and bump into a wall or ten.”

 

The Cobra troopers laughed evilly as Flint sunk to a crouch, resisting further movement, and then they picked him back up by his shoulders and dragged him on. Finally, after what seemed an eternity of dragging, kicking and beating, the pair of troopers reached a Cobra officer, who was standing post as the dungeon’s chief jailer. He opened an empty cell and waved to the Desert Scorpions to throw Flint inside.

 

Not wanting to take any chances, they only released his ankles so that he could stand upright and walk and then shoved him hard enough to cover the six feet across the cell in one long stumble. Flint crashed into the threadbare mattress and thin steel bed frame on the far wall with a metallic clatter, where he slumped down to the ground and panted as he gutted through the subsequent pain.

 

The Cobra officer shut the cell door quickly with a loud clang, and turned his master key in the lock to seal Flint inside. Twirling the large key ring in his hand, the officer led the two Desert Scorpions away, the trio laughing at how badly Flint had been knocked around during the trip to the dungeon.

 

“Yeah, you just enjoy your little ego trip, you Cobra fucks!” Flint yelled out into the corridor. “I’ll find you and personally cut your guts out!”

 

After a few moments of taking stock of his injuries and letting the pain and discomfort subside, Flint set about studying the details of his surroundings. The enclosure he was in was basically three solid concrete walls that had been pockmarked with age and one wall made entirely of old iron bars and the locked cell door. There were no windows, but he remembered always going down stairs from the facility entrance, so he surmised he must be some distance underground.

 

Flint had been provided a cot to sleep on, but it was something that wouldn’t even pass for a bed in a homeless shelter in New York. It was a well-worn rack festooned with sharp metal springs, with a thin foam and threadbare fabric mattress on top. And the ensemble wasn’t adorned with any type of bed linens, clean or otherwise.

 

He had a bucket-shaped commode bolted to the floor to relieve himself in - not that he could use his hands to do it - and there was barely a trickle of running water that drip-dropped into a tiny ceramic lavatory basin. All in all, the word squalor was an understatement in regards to the conditions Flint found himself in.

 

There were no other sounds in his particular hallway, so he assumed the cells were either empty, or the prisoners held elsewhere were too docile to communicate. He had been given a cell closest to the guard officer’s station, but there was still some distance in between. He couldn’t remember if there were firing ports or other security measures in the long hall between the cells and the access point where the chief jailer held court.

 

Several pairs of footsteps resounded through the long hallways of the dungeon and Flint heard a man scream out in pain. Then another cell door clanged shut. Laughs of the Cobra troops that had delivered the prisoner to his cell wafted to Flint along with the smells of stale, moist air and the sickening scent of human waste festering in rancid commodes in the other recently-occupied – or vacated - cells.

 

Flint tried to settle down, sitting on the floor as he regained his energy. He felt a sharp jab in his back and twisted around to find a sharp piece of metal that had snapped and bent away from his rack. The metal was a godsend, as Flint got himself motivated and then angled his elbows enough to bring the ropes binding his wrists up to the shard of steel. He began slowly rubbing the rope back and forth over the sharp piece, severing the thick hemp strands one at a time.

 

He worked steadily for maybe an hour, maybe longer, but he couldn’t perceive the passage of time. Finally, the last strands of rope broke apart, and his wrists were free. The warrant officer rubbed his wrists gently to restore the circulation in his hands, which had begun to feel numb from being so tightly bound. He didn’t have a chance to rest for long, as footfalls echoed in the hallway. Flint tucked his hands behind his back once more and interlaced his thumbs, spitting at the chief jailer as the Cobra strutted by.

 

The jailer stopped and ran his baton down the bars of Flint’s cell, making a clanging sound with it before smiling. “You look uncomfortable,” the jailer said. “Who did you piss off to deserve such wonderful treatment?”

 

“Your mother,” Flint grunted angrily. “I didn’t want to put out for an ugly windbag like her. I mean, look at the kid she had...”

 

The jailer seemed to take offense at the remark and then calmed down, wondering if it was all a trick to get him to open the cell and take Flint on by himself. He kept the cell door locked but swung his baton into the bars and made a hefty clang that echoed back and forth. “Your childish repartee will soon be replaced by all of the Joes’ secrets when the Baroness is through with you. When they’ve tortured you and kicked the crap out of you over and over, you’ll be begging me to draw my weapon and shoot you dead in your sleep.”

 

“I just might do that anyway,” Flint replied, with his trademark lop-sided grin. “You damn Cobras shoot so badly that unless your pistol was jammed in my mouth, you wouldn’t be able to hit the broad side of a barn! If you wanted to shoot me between the eyes, I’d have to wear Kevlar between my legs to keep my jewels safe and you’d be lucky to hit either target!”

 

The jailer nervously reached for his holster and the smooth-gripped automatic tucked inside. “Don’t you tempt me, G.I. Joe; I’ll do you and tell everyone you tried an escape.”

 

“Wouldn’t that make your fucking year?” Flint retorted. “Maybe the Baroness would string your balls up to amuse Cobra Commander then. What an honor!”

 

“Shut your hole, prisoner!” the jailer yelled, practically tearing the key ring off his belt. He worked the lock quickly and leveled his baton in Flint’s direction. The jailer’s thumb pressed the actuator nub on the handle and the stun stick hummed as it charged.

 

Flint could almost feel the electricity change in the air when the stun stick crackled. He waited until the last possible moment, when the Cobra officer was straddling his legs and reaching the stun stick out to touch Flint’s gut.

 

Flint drew up one leg and thrust his boot right into the Cobra officer’s crotch, clipping him on the right thigh and causing him to lose his balance. Flint swung his hands from behind his back and grabbed for the stun stick, feeling a mild tingle when some exposed flesh got a little too close to the contact at the baton’s tip. He hung tenaciously onto the jailer’s wrist, pinching off the nerves in his hand so that he couldn’t control his fingers. After a second, the jailer’s hand went limp and the baton fell silent as it dropped to the floor.

 

Flint backhanded the jailer with his right fist while his left kept the enemy trooper’s wrist ensnared. As the soldier began to fall away from him, Flint let go and kicked out once more, this time hitting the officer in his abdomen. The jailer skidded across the cell and bumped his head on the edge of the lavatory sink.

 

While the jailer sat dazed on the cell floor, Flint picked up the stun stick and tried to figure it out. He didn’t have much time to act, when the jailer’s face became angry and he reached for his service automatic. “Now, I’m gonna kill you, you fucking American!” the jailer swore as the silver Smith and Wesson 9mm came out.

 

“Aww, fuck all this macho shit,” Flint said, charging at the jailer. He swung the baton at the officer’s face and connected with the bridge of his nose, breaking it into several pieces. The officer blinked through the agony of the hit and tried to level his pistol at Flint.

 

Flint saw the hammer of the automatic start to move with the hollow click of a pistol about to fire and reversed his swing, using the baton to push the officer’s pistol across his body and throw off his aim. The barrel of the sidearm hit the cell wall and became wedged momentarily between the lavatory sink’s water pipe and the wall. After a moment of fighting, Flint maintained his advantage and the pistol was ultimately knocked free of the jailer’s hand, sliding back across the floor.

 

With the jailer facing away from him, Flint could grab onto the back of the officer’s battle dress uniform. He did just that, taking a fistful of material into his hand and lifting the enemy trooper in the direction he wanted the man to go. Flint dropped the officer face first into the rancid commode and then his right thumb felt the small raised nub of the stun stick.

 

“Enjoy your last meal, bozo,” Flint said as he charged the stun stick and held the officer in the commode. The jailer sputtered and thrashed as he tried to catch a breath of clean air. Flint released the nub and put the stun stick’s end into the commode. Then he grabbed onto one of the officer’s free hands and wrapped it around the baton’s handle.

 

When Flint let go of the jailer, he squeezed down on the baton, pressing the officer’s palm onto the nub and discharging the stun stick right into the commode. When the charge hit the enemy officer, his hand tightened around the handle instead of releasing it, so the stick continued to discharge, burning the jailer’s flesh and cooking off the disgusting wastes in the commode’s basin. Eventually, the stench of burned flesh and feces subsided when the jailer died and his hand went limp around the stun stick.

 

Flint pinched his nose off and wrinkled his face in disgust from the smell, making sure the jailer was ‘deader than hell’ with a swift kick in the side before picking up the discarded S&W pistol, the jailer’s keys and spare ammunition magazines, and locking the body in the cell behind him.

 

Flint sprinted down the row of cells, looking into each one and finding each one empty. He knew he heard screaming from somewhere, and it would be his good luck if the other captured Joe was close enough to spring. As he reached a corner in the corridor, he rounded it at a dead run and surprised a pair of Vipers on patrol.

 

“What the hell?” one of the Vipers tried to say, when Flint’s pistol flashed in his hand. An instinctive shot from Flint on the fly was invariably much better than many people’s calculated attempts. The S&W 9mm cracked four times and each Viper took two perfectly placed rounds through their helmet faceplates and into their skulls. Their bodies twitched and writhed on the ground while Flint snatched up their AK-74 assault rifles and ammo bandoleers to add to his collection.

 

But the pistol reports echoed loudly in the crossed hallways of the dungeon. Several patrols had heard the sounds, and shouting came from behind Flint, where some guards had smelled and then found the dead jailer in Flint’s cell.

 

What the patrols knew and Flint didn’t, was that the part of Section Seven that he was trying to escape from was simply a long rectangle of corridors that had a few cross-hallways, but only one exit to the rest of the prison. The Vipers realized very quickly how dangerous Flint was, especially armed, and decided not to go after him. Instead, they tipped over the jailer’s desk and dragged it with a metal-grinding squeal to block the exit corridor, and then leaped behind it to use as an improvised blocking position. A total of six AK-74 rifles wavered in the hands of their fearful owners as they awaited Flint’s next move.

 

“One of you chickens needs to go to the intercom by the elevator and call for backup,” the senior Viper of the group said. “Come on, get your ass moving before he tries something, and get back here.”

 

Nodding to accept the order, the senior Viper’s partner got up from his position and sprinted down the hallway, trying not to make a loud clomping sound with his boots and give away his movement. The other men were almost frozen rigidly in place out of fear of Flint more than doing their duty and their fingers were hair-trigger tight on their weapons, ready to fire instantly.

 

Flint sat against an empty cell, using the setback of the bars to conceal himself from the hallway. He could hear the Vipers’ boots clattering on the uneven stone floor, and then the sounds of something heavy being dragged. Eventually the place went silent.

 

The Warrant Officer scanned back and forth along the hallway to see if he could pick out any routes to an exit that the Cobras didn’t know about. He quickly stripped the contents of the equipment pouches the dead Vipers carried down to just the bare essentials – ammunition for the AK-74 rifles, grenades and combat knives. He also attached the jailer’s key loop with a length of boot lace around his neck and dropped it under his BDU shirt collar.

 

He unloaded both AK-74’s and traded the magazines for full ones, topping off the ones the Vipers had fired with loose rounds from their pouches and stuffing them into the musette bag he had selected for his rifle ammunition. Trying not to make noise, Flint worked the bolts of both assault rifles quietly and then decided he was ready to try for the exit passageway.

 

***

 

“Lock and load, Vipers,” the Viper Sergeant ordered his men quietly as they held the barricaded position awaiting Flint’s move. “Check your ammo and start this shootin’ match with full clips.”

 

With a pair of Vipers covering the hallway approach, the rest of the security team unloaded their weapons. Soft taps sounded as each Viper plucked out fresh magazines and rapped them on their helmets to shake loose any stuck ammo before inserting them into their AK-74’s. Once half the team was fully loaded, the pair on watch followed suit.

 

By the time the Vipers reloaded their assault weapons, the runner had returned from the elevator’s intercom panel. “Sarge, more security is on the way,” the runner reported. “I spoke to the Baroness herself in Security Control. She’s on the way down.”

 

“Good work, troop,” the sergeant said. “Get locked and loaded and stand by. If this Joe escapes, you can be for damn sure Baroness’s weapon WILL be fired in anger. Only thing is, it’ll be our heads taking a dose of her nine-millimeter lead.”

 

***

 

Flint slung his assault rifles over each shoulder, making sure not to cross the slings. Had he slung the weapons over his head, he could accidentally have strangled himself when trying to fire them. Using one of the combat knives, he sliced holes in the rifle slings to fit the handles of the grenades, in order to keep them handy.

 

With the support of the rifle slings, Flint could fire one AK-74 with each hand. He set them to fully automatic and then found the central utility corridor that ran from the far end of the cell block back to the main exit. He could see that the jailer’s desk had been moved to form a blocking position, and Flint was disappointed with himself that he hadn’t found signs of any others in the block. Pressing his back against the jagged stone wall, he worked his way slowly down the utility hallway, trying to stay as silent as possible.

 

Flint couldn’t see how many pairs of eyes were staring down the hallway towards him, and the shadows wouldn’t conceal him for very long since the corridors were well lit. There were no smoke grenades among the ordnance he had taken from the Vipers, so he had to look for another way to gain the upper hand. As he crept closer to the Vipers, he spotted a power junction box just beyond the exit, in the main hallway that led to his objective.

 

Flint let the AK-74 in his left hand swing free from his shoulder and cradled the other weapon, sighting along the iron sights at the junction box. The utility corridor was narrow, but passable at a run if he was able to knock out the lights. However, he also ran the risk of drawing return fire, so he had to follow the lights going out with one of the fragmentation grenades, pitching it in the dark and hoping the blast would take out the enemy and not himself.

 

***

 

“I don’t see a thing in that damn utility corridor and there’s no sound,” one of the Vipers that crouched behind the upturned desk whispered to the patrol’s NCO.

 

“Don’t get itchy,” the Viper sergeant said. “Stay calm and hold this position until the backup arrives. Keep your eyes peeled.” The NCO motioned to the other pairs of guards, who had backed off to cover the short hallway and the elevator lobby that led to other dungeon blocks. They had stationed themselves behind corners so that they could catch Flint in a deadly cross fire if he tried to hit the barricade directly and charge for the elevator.

 

The metallic punch-punch-punch sound of Flint’s AK-74 echoed down the utility corridor as bullets flew high over the pair of Vipers crouched behind the metal desk. They ducked their heads behind cover and snapped back to their rifles as they heard snapping and popping behind them. A string of rounds from Flint’s rifle tore into the electrical junction box and had done enough damage to kill the lights in the entire block. It took a total of thirty heartbeats for the main lights to go dead and small, low-voltage emergency lamps in the lobby to switch on.

 

“Fire! Fire! Fire!” one of the guards shouted while yanking back hard on the trigger before his eyes could adjust to the new lighting conditions. His AK-74 flashed red-hot into the corridor. His partner followed suit from six inches to the guard’s left, and the combined noise from their rifle fire sent a deafening echo and a hail of green tracers towards Flint.

 

As he dove to the ground to avoid the waist-high hail of enemy 5.45mm ball ammo, Flint ended up dropping one of his rifles. He snatched a small baseball grenade from the other and bit down on the metal cotter pin’s ring, pulling the pin out and spitting it away. Rolling to his right, Flint lobbed the grenade down the utility corridor, hoping that his awkward throw had the range to hit the barricade.

 

The Vipers were still firing into the darkness and couldn’t hear the clatter of the grenade landing between them over the rat-tat-tat of their own guns spitting lead at full auto. The NCO, several meters behind the barricade, heard the telltale metal clang of the grenade landing and leaped away, shouting for his men to take cover.

 

Flint spread his body out flat, cupping his hands over his ears in anticipation of the loud KARUMMPH of the grenade explosion blasting out his eardrums in the confined hallway. When the grenade went off, Flint was close enough to feel a blast of warm, high-velocity air rush across the back of his head and down his spine. The two Vipers behind the metal desk were torn to shreds by the hundreds of steel fragments that burst away from the grenade, but the steel desk kept much of the shrapnel from coming back towards Warrant Officer Fairborne to do him any damage.

 

The Vipers that weren’t killed in the grenade blast had all been disoriented by the loudness of the detonation. The heavy stone walls served very well to keep the four covering Vipers from meeting the same fate as their buddies that were facing Flint down.

 

Flint recovered first and scrambled onto his knees, sliding his right hand forward to bring the AK-74 into a usable position. His left foot snagged the sling on the rifle he thought he had lost when taking cover, so he reached down to grab onto that weapon’s foregrip before standing upright.

 

The warrant officer re-slung the weapons over each shoulder and wrapped his shaky fingers around each pistol grip, slipping his index fingers against the cold steel triggers. He could hear groans from the Vipers who were trying to regain their composure and decided he had to move.

 

With a blood curdling shout, Flint charged through the blocked passageway and into the elevator lobby, blasting away with both AK’s. He crossed the barrels in front of his body, using the fore grips to support each other while still being able to direct his automatic fire to either flank or straight in front of his body.

 

The crossed barrels made short work of the Viper guards, who were hit instantly when Flint charged past the corners behind which they had taken cover. As soon as Flint saw the lobby was clear, he released the triggers and the barrels smoked silently.

 

Flint discarded one of the AK’s and transferred the ammo and magazines he could scrounge up into his pilfered musette bag. He then summoned the small elevator and when it arrived with the ding of a hidden bell, Flint jammed a combat knife into the doorway to keep it open and set himself to work moving the Viper bodies into the elevator car.

 

***

 

“The detachment has been assembled, Baroness,” reported a Cobra Lieutenant in the elevator lobby several levels above where Flint was being held. “We’re ready to descend through the main stairwell and to also secure the single elevator car. Security on the levels between us and the Section Seven holding areas has consolidated in their elevator lobbies and blocked them off. The Joe will have to recon each level by fire in order to get past our troopers, and that will cost him the time we need to hit him with full force.”

 

“Very well,” Baroness replied, slinging an AKSU-74 sub-machinegun comfortably over her shoulder. The smaller, handheld weapon was much more efficient for her needs than its bigger brother, the long barreled AK-74. She taped an aiming light to one side of the foregrip and a laser dot projector to the other. Then she checked to make sure the vertical handle was attached well before locking and loading the compact piece. “Take up a tactical formation and get the first squad down the stairwell with a SAW-Viper on point.”

 

Baroness summoned a Techno-Viper that was lurking in a corner while the fighting unit was assembling. “You there! Override the elevator and summon the car to this level. Make no stops along the way! SAW-Vipers, you stand by your weapons!”

 

After the Techno-Viper manipulated the elevator’s override controls, the elevator car sped to the surface level and its bell rang just before the door opened. A collective gasp came from the two security squads’ members when they saw that Flint had hastily stacked the Vipers’ dead bodies in the elevator.

 

“Snap to, you cowards!” Baroness shouted, backing to the far end of the elevator lobby and looking at the access stairwell where the guard platoon’s first squad had disappeared. “Check those bodies and search the elevator car from top to bottom!”

 

The Cobra troops reached into the car and dragged the topmost bodies out into the lobby. As they did so, the unsuspecting troops heard the metallic pinging of several grenade plungers popping free. The mix of high explosive and fragmentation hand grenades rolled out from under the top bodies into the lobby and cooked off one by one in rapid succession.

 

Baroness dove for the access stairwell and closed the steel door behind her just in time to avoid the rolling explosions of Flint’s booby trap. The two squads of unlucky Cobra troops were incinerated by the detonations – the luckiest among them died instantly inside the elevator, while the others burned to death or were perforated from head to toe with razor-sharp shards of flying shrapnel as they fought each other for a route of escape.

 

Flint ascended the access stairs from the lowest sublevel and had reached the one two levels down from the ground floor lobby when a muffled thump sound rumbled over his head and the stairwell shook. He smiled when he recognized that the booby trap in the elevator had been sprung.

 

Turning to get out of the stairway, Flint silently turned the handle of the closest door and slipped into the sublevel’s hallway. He spotted a sign hanging from the wall that read “Interrogation” in both English and Arabic. He decided to poke around a bit and hide out from the charging footsteps that were pounding down the stairwell.

 

“Halt!” Baroness said, raising her fist into the air and almost smacking the SAW-Viper closely following her in the face. “I just heard a door closing. Let’s try sub-level two. Radioman, make sure the guards are in place on the other sublevels.”

 

The Cobra intelligence officer led the way down to the door that Flint had just passed through, and grabbed the SAW-Viper by the shoulder. “You go first, trooper. I want Flint alive, so keep that fucking machinegun under control, got it?”

 

The SAW-Viper nodded, slinging back his medium machinegun and drawing a sidearm instead. He gripped the door handle and yanked it open quickly. When the machine gunner charged into the sublevel’s lobby, he heard a half-dozen clicks and a Viper sergeant call out for him to freeze.

 

“Jesus Christ, we almost blew you away, SAW-Viper,” the Sergeant said with a frustrated snort when he recognized the Cobra uniform and lowered his AK-74. He stiffened slightly when Baroness brushed past the SAW-Viper and approached him.

 

“Flint just came through this door,” Baroness growled at the non-com. “Where the fuck were all of you? Why haven’t you captured him?”

 

“We had finished a sweep of the east cell block, Baroness,” the Viper reported with a gulp. “We didn’t see anyone enter this level.”

 

Baroness grabbed the Viper sergeant by his uniform collar and rubbed the metal stock of her AKSU into the trooper’s gut, causing him to double over in pain. “You lazy Cretin! Can’t you follow a simple fucking order? You were told to rally here and secure the elevator and stairs, not to go jerk off in the empty cells while an armed and dangerous Joe is allowed to roam free or escape this facility! Get your fuckin’ troops together and take point. We’ll sweep the interrogation wing.”

 

The Viper non-com gulped again, cradling his assault rifle. “Y- y- yes, ma’am. C’mon troopers, move out!”

 

Flint hung quietly in the ceiling, having draped his body over a pair of sturdy wooden support beams that had been disguised with a commercial drop ceiling in a recent renovation. He watched the goings-on in the lobby through a ceiling tile that he had left askew enough to peep through.

 

Soon the eighteen Vipers in the Baroness’ cluster had fanned out to search the Interrogation wing, leaving just the intelligence officer scanning the lobby with attentive eyes. Her tight leather uniform made soft creaking sounds as she moved about the room.

 

Flint reached for the AK-74, which he had rested on one of the support beams. Getting a shot at the Baroness at close range was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Because his survival was paramount, he was willing to kill her instead of take her for an insurance policy to get out of the prison, or to bring her back to Joe HQ as a prize.

 

His fingers groped for the weapon but they didn’t latch on just right, and the rifle teetered on its beam. Flint cringed when the assault rifle fell from the beam and busted through the drop ceiling tiles below.

 

Baroness heard the crash of the thin fiberboard tile and saw the AK-74 drop to the floor. Instantly tensing, she shouted a one-word summons to her troopers before firing a few single shots into the gaping ceiling hole.

 

Flint had to try to roll sideways to avoid the gunfire, and it ultimately caused him to also lose his precarious balance on the supports. Falling off the beams feet first, he dropped through the ceiling and almost landed on top of the Baroness.

 

His hands groped desperately for the automatic pistol stashed in one of his pockets while Baroness twisted around to find where her AKSU had fallen on the floor. When her fingers found the sub-machinegun’s pistol grip, she also found herself staring into the barrel of Flint’s automatic.

 

“You’re going to be my insurance policy to get outta here, Baroness, Flint said with a sneer. “Leave your burp-gun right there and get up slowly.”

 

“You’ll never escape, Flint,” Baroness replied, as the forms of Vipers arrived around them, bringing their weapons to ready positions. She twisted her hips and raised her knees in front of Flint, acting as if to get back onto her feet. When Flint glanced about to gauge the approach of the Vipers, Baroness drove her boot into Flint’s closest leg, just missing his knee.

 

The burning sensation in Flint’s thigh from the Baroness’s kick startled him, and the momentum pushed him off balance. He fell backward, gripping tightly onto his pistol to try to hold onto it. When his body hit the floor, the Vipers swarmed over him, striking at his face and body with the butts of their rifles. Some of them also angrily kicked the Joe for killing their comrades.

 

Baroness got back onto her feet and pointed her AKSU-74 at the cluster of Vipers beating on Flint’s body. “Just disarm him, you louts!” she yelled. “I want Flint alive!” When the Vipers failed to obey the Baroness’s command in their bloodlust and anger, she leveled her SMG on the group of men and fired three single shots at the ones doing the most physical damage to Flint’s curled-up body. As the Vipers fell writhing to the floor in pools of their own blood, the other Cobra troopers stepped back from Flint, while one of the veteran soldiers made sure to snap up Flint’s pistol and kicked away any weapons that he could reach for on the floor.

 

Baroness motioned for two nasty-looking SAW-Vipers to take control of Flint, who moaned slightly from being pummeled upon. “Take Flint right down to the first interrogation room and strip search him thoroughly,” the Baroness ordered. “I don’t want any more surprises from him. As for the rest of you Cretins,” she said with an angry look at her undisciplined prison guards, “police up the bodies of your comrades and consider yourselves lucky I didn’t decide to shoot the lot of you! Get out of here!”

 

***

 

Saudi Arabia-Iraq Frontier (Disputed Area)

Northwest of King Khalid Military City

1400 hours, local time

 

Blackout drove along the dusty trace in the sand, following his map and a portable Global Positioning System set that had been in the Joes’ transport truck when he stole it. On the way to the Quartermaster Laundry Company, the Cobra infiltrator had ditched the deuce-and-a-half, stealing an open-topped M-998 Hummer utility truck from another American unit’s motor pool. Using the Hummer, Blackout posed as a convoy escort driver and simply rolled right through the outer Saudi and American checkpoints.

 

Having finally made it to the border traces, Blackout found himself just behind the defensive lines. Although there weren’t an excessive number of prepared combat positions along the Allied side of the border, American and Saudi patrols aggressively followed vehicle trails in the sand and a network of connected battalion, company and platoon fighting camps had sprung up in the defensive buildup that now involved almost one hundred thousand Allied troops from Saudi Arabia, the United States and United Kingdom and a number of other Arabian Peninsula countries holding the thin line of defense against several regiments of Cobra advisors and some two hundred thousand Iraqi ground troops poised for action.

 

Blackout parked the Hummer along the side of a trail that led north from the paved Tap-line Road, which was the only usable highway in northern Saudi Arabia. It was barely more than a two-lane wide road in most places, running parallel to the Trans-Arabian Pipeline, which carried vital petroleum between Saudi oilfields along the Persian Gulf to the crude oil refineries and supertanker ports along the Mediterranean Sea.

 

Dust devils rose in long lines to Blackout’s north, which were the telltale trails of American patrols mounted in M-1A2 main battle tanks and M-2A3 infantry fighting vehicles. Armored and mechanized units from such famous U.S. units as the Brave Rifles (3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment), the First Team (1st Cavalry Division) and the National Guard’s Rainbow Division (42nd Mechanized Infantry) trolled the border traces to keep Cobra and their Iraqi reinforcements away.

 

Blackout raised the hood of the Hummer to make it appear to passing vehicles that the utility truck was abandoned after having broken down on the road. Then he sat in the vehicle’s shadow, withdrawing from his pocket a tiny emergency signaling beacon. Snapping a standard double-A battery into the unit, Blackout tucked the beacon into a pocket once the red LED on its casing began to flash.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, on the Iraqi side of the frontier:

 

“HISS Alpha one-six, this is Tango six-six,” a Tele-Viper relayed in the 104th Cobra Mechanized Regiment’s tactical operations center. “Observe and report on patrol activity in your AO and transmit data to your company headquarters. A harassment raid in your sector is imminent.”

 

The 104th Regiment’s TOC was the hub of communications for a Cobra advisory unit of three battalions’ worth of combat troops and HISS IV heavy armor and the Iraqi division they were embedded with, amounting to three rifle brigades of over 10,500 conscript troops. For all of the radio, teletype and SATCOM signals that passed through the TOC facility, the dedicated Techno-Vipers and Tele-Vipers that operated the site kept everything flowing smoothly.

 

A shrill tone sounded in one of the Tele-Vipers’ headsets and the Cobra soldier yanked the helmet and integral earpieces off his head with a gasp of alarm. “Supervisor!” the Tele-Viper shouted, checking the computer screen in front of his station.

 

As the Techno-Viper in charge of the radio relay unit walked over to investigate the Tele-Viper’s surprise, the laptop computer displayed a readout and flashed a series of encoded numbers on the screen. “What do you have, Corporal?” the Techno-Viper asked.

 

The Tele-Viper pointed to his computer screen. “I just got a squawk on the emergency band. It’s a Cobra-only signal. The readout shows an encoded repeating signal.”

 

The Techno-Viper studied the signal readout and tapped the Tele-Viper on the shoulder. “Corporal, run that code through the secure commo center in Baghdad. It looks like we’re going to need the regimental S-2.” As the Tele-Viper began to process the signal code through the Cobra field headquarters in Baghdad, the Techno-Viper moved across the radio tent to find the 104th Regiment’s duty staff intelligence officer.

 

After a few minutes of scrambling, the Techno-Viper returned with the Regiment S-2, who studied the readout and instantly recognized the encrypted code. “Master Sergeant,” he said to the Techno-Viper. “Raise the front line observation post in Sector Five. We have an agent to pick up from behind the lines.”

 

***

 

At the same time, in Section Seven:

 

Flint struggled against his bonds while the SAW-Vipers that had been detailed to strip-search him passed his TDC back and forth to study it. While the device looked like an ordinary cellular phone, the soldiers rightly guessed that Flint had been cleverly concealing it from any field searches for a reason.

 

The Warrant Officer hung from handcuffs attached to a chain that dangled from the ceiling of the interrogation room, a few feet from a metal desk. Two simple, straight-backed chairs sat on opposite sides of the desk, and if Flint twisted his neck around, he was able to make out the metal bed frame leaning against the wall. The room stunk with the pall of singed flesh, and Flint could still feel an electricity tingle through his nerves.

 

The SAW-Vipers had followed the Baroness’s orders to the letter, removing all of Flint’s camouflage BDU’s and even scrutinizing the uniform for secret stashes, especially after they had found the TDC that had eluded discovery by their comrades in the field.

 

“Hey, guys, it’s starting to feel kind of chilly in here,” Flint said, trying to get the SAW-Vipers’ attention. “While I don’t mind having some air conditioning in this room for a change from being out in the hot desert, I could really use something to look decent in, especially if the Baroness is coming back.”

 

The SAW-Vipers laughed between themselves, playing catch with Flint’s TDC. “I think the Baroness would enjoy the view just the way you are,” one of them said. “Why don’t you tell us what this is and maybe we can see fit to help you back into your trousers.”

 

“Can’t you tell what it is?” Flint responded quietly. “Don’t you uneducated rejects know a cellular phone when you see it?”

 

“We know that’s what it looks like,” the more talkative SAW-Viper said. “But why would you be hiding it tucked into the waistband of your underwear? It must be some sort of escape transmitter or locator beacon if you would go to such lengths to keep it from being found in a field search.”

 

“Or maybe, your buddies out on the line are brainless toadstools who didn’t bother to look,” Flint said with a self-satisfied sneer.

 

“Ha! That would come as no surprise,” the SAW-Viper said, turning his partner for the door. The steel door creaked open before the enemy soldiers turned towards it, and the Baroness walked in. She motioned for them to leave her alone with Flint, taking his TDC from them before they exited the interrogation room.

 

“Well, well,” Baroness said with an evil smile. “The men finally obeyed orders. And they found your little trinket. Good.” She walked around Flint, carrying a leather riding crop as she studied the Joe’s body from top to bottom.

 

Brushing her riding crop along Flint’s flesh, Baroness looked him in the eyes and continued. “You will be our guest for a long time, Flint. And you will tell me everything I want to know about this little toy and about the Joes’ operations here in Iraq. You’ll give me your communications codes and tell me what General Tomahawk’s plans are.”

 

“Fat chance,” Flint replied. “I’m not saying anything while my twigs and berries are hanging out for the whole world to see. Gimme my trousers, will ya, for Christ’s sake?”

 

“My, my,” the Baroness cooed. “I never figured you to be modest, Flint. If you’ve got the cojones to rise to the top of the Joes, I should think you’d be less concerned about your clothes and more concerned about whether I will break you or not.”

 

“No, I think I should worry about my clothes,” Flint said with a lop-sided grin on his face. “Because I know for a fact, that you won’t break me.”

 

“How fully mistaken you are, Flint,” the Baroness warned, sliding the tip of her riding crop up the front of one of Flint’s legs and stopping it when it touched his heart. “I have some rather interesting plans for you. You see, we’ve learned a lot about you in the many years that we’ve been at odds. And based on that, I’ve come up with a whole battery of things to use against you.”

 

“Ha!” Flint laughed. “I’d love to see you try!” Flint’s lips elongated into a frown and he sniffled like he was about to cry. “Oh, Baroness! I’ll tell you everything I know!” Flint cried out in mock lamentation. Then his voice became a serious monotone. “Flint, Chief Warrant Officer, United States Army, serial number...”

 

The Baroness stroked Flint’s cheek with the riding crop before walking to the interrogation room’s door. She wheeled in a cart that had what looked like a shrouded fish tank and a number of syringes with an array of glass bottles that could have been medications or nasty combinations of chemicals for truth serums.

 

“Why don’t we talk, Flint?” the Baroness said. “Come on, like old friends. We’ve fought on the opposing sides for so many years, and you’ve been meddling in Cobra’s business for so long that it’s like I know you almost intimately.” Instead of using the riding crop, this time the Baroness stroked Flint’s flesh with her fingertips, tracing the contours of his well-toned and muscled body and feeling the goose bumps coming out of Flint’s skin in response to the room temperature and her contact.

 

“You’re not the kind of old friend that I want to have, Baroness,” Flint taunted. “I’m definitely not into that leather and whips, Dominatrix thing.”

 

“Well, you surely don’t want to see what I have in that enclosure, Flint,” the Baroness warned, motioning to the ‘fish tank’ with its black fabric shroud. “Because that will ensure you a lot of pain.”

 

The Baroness moved to the desk and sat down, accepting three thick folders with Flint’s dossier information in them. “Why don’t you just tell me why G.I. Joe is stationed in Saudi Arabia? Where is your main base? And how many teams have you foolishly sent across the frontier?”

 

Flint looked away from the Baroness and re-stated the Big Four. “Flint, Chief Warrant Officer, U.S. Army, serial number...”

 

“Don’t try to delay, Flint,” the Baroness said. “We know that Joes were involved in a raid of some sort in the city of Baghdad. We’ve recovered parts of a damaged SHARC and a sonar sweep of the Tigris River showed its wreckage at the bottom. Several units reported engaging a WHALE hovercraft escaping to the south. Your raids have cost Cobra men and material. And we have some of your comrades. If you don’t break, most assuredly one of them will.”

 

“I don’t know anything about what you’re saying,” Flint said.

 

“Then what are you doing in country, flying an attack helicopter behind the lines, eh?” Baroness asked, drawing a clear liquid from one of the marked glass bottles into a large syringe.

 

“Hey, I’m with the Big Green Machine,” Flint replied. “I go where they send me. I just follow orders. And it’s because U. S. ARMY stands for ‘Uncle Sam Ain’t Released Me Yet’. It doesn’t mean I have a need to know everything.”

 

“You were part of a multi-ship formation,” Baroness read from a spot report written by Major Bludd’s troops. “What were you sent to attack? Or were you there to cover an extraction? How many Green Beret teams are you supporting here? Where are the British Special Air Service teams that are on the WMD search mission?”

 

“Hey, lady, I said I didn’t know, and I still don’t know from ten seconds ago,” Flint asserted with an arrogant tone. “All I know is my name is Flint, and I am a Chief Warrant Officer in the United States Army.”

 

“Very well,” Baroness said. “You force me to use uncivilized measures.” She walked over to Flint’s hanging form and whacked him across the small of his back with the riding crop. Flint cringed when he felt the stinging lash of the hard leather.

 

“As far as motivations go, Baroness, you’re doing a great job urging me not to share any information with you,” Flint taunted, trying not to show the discomfort in his face.

 

“You’re quite a handsome man up close, Flint,” the Baroness said, giving him a firm grope before walking over to the fish tank. “It would be such a shame to damage you permanently.” She lifted the shroud from the tank and Flint finally saw its contents. Inside were a number of slithering snakes. The undulating patterns made the snakes’ species tough to discern, but Flint didn’t need to study them to know Baroness had chosen a pack of poisonous ones.

 

“If you refuse to talk to me,” Baroness continued. “I shall resort to these lovely creatures. Cobra has combed the earth for the most exquisite viperidae and elapidae species. In other words, poisonous snakes.”

 

“These bottles,” she said, waving her hand at the array of glass bottles and syringes, “contain the antivenin compounds to stave off the effects of snakebite. If the pain of the neurotoxins or the burning blood sensation of the hemotoxins don’t compel you to talk, you will die within mere feet of your salvation. If you talk, you will be treated.”

 

“You’re just one crafty devil, aren’t you, Baroness?” Flint said while trying to move away from the snake tank as Baroness wheeled it closer. His shackles prevented much movement, even though he wasn’t hanging high enough to not touch the floor.

 

Baroness traded her riding crop for a long snake wrangler’s stick and a pair of heavy gloves. “Don’t think I’m fooling with you, Flint. I am quite serious about letting one of these lovelies slither right over there and bite you someplace on your naked body. Like I said, it's quite a shame that you resist and force me to take such measures.”

 

“Go suck wind, Baroness,” Flint snarled. “You can do what you want, but I won’t betray my country or my buddies!”

 

“Too bad,” the Baroness replied. She reached the snake wrangler’s stick into the swirling mass of snakes and squeezed on the pull handle. The gripper on the end of the stick took hold of a light, reddish-brown serpent that had bowtie-shaped splotches of dark brown on its scaly body. The unassuming looking snake was only about two feet long, but as soon as the Baroness grabbed onto it, the snake began to thrash and whip itself about angrily, reacting badly at being snatched out of the tank.

 

Baroness seemed to have trouble keeping the snake under control as it snapped its body around, looking for a target to bite as it sought its freedom. But she was able to hold on tightly and kept the small viper at arm’s length.

 

She brought the enraged snake closer to Flint, who tried not to flinch, but was becoming more fearful as the thought of being bitten by the snake crept into his mind. “This particular specimen is a Malayan Pit Viper,” Baroness said to inform Flint. “It has a potent hemotoxin. I’m sure we’ll enjoy the effects.”

 

Flint tried to remember back to when he studied the Army Field Manual on combat survival, which was FM 21-76 back when he was a newly-frocked Airborne Ranger. The volume had a complete section on the poisonous snakes of the world and the effects of the two major types of venoms they carried.

 

The hemotoxic variety often resulted in pain and significant tissue damage, and if left untreated, the kinds used by some of the pit vipers (although Flint didn’t recall which ones) were ultimately fatal.

 

The snake angrily shot its head towards Flint’s nude body, even though he tried his best to stay still and not draw the angry animal’s attention. With every attempted strike, the Malayan would open its mouth and show the two long, folding fangs that delivered its potent poison.

 

One particular strike attempt the Malayan made came very close to scoring in the region of Flint’s crotch and he did leap backwards instinctively out of being startled. Baroness had to take a step back herself to keep the snake from injecting its poison before she wanted it to.

 

“Tsk-tsk,” the Baroness said after backing the snake off. “I wouldn’t want the snake to bite prematurely, or to get you there especially. I have plans for some parts of you, and don’t want those goods damaged. Have you reconsidered the seriousness of this situation?”

 

Flint spat at the snake, which hissed annoyedly and flicked out its forked tongue in Flint’s direction, baring its fangs once more. “You’re gonna have to go through with it, Baroness. I’d rather die than betray my unit.”

 

“Too bad,” she replied, lowering the wrangler’s stick close to the floor. She held the snake closer to Flint’s legs and he tried to swing himself to a safe distance, grabbing onto the chain hooked to his handcuffs and pulling his legs up off the floor. The snake didn’t waste any time – it found a target and struck, the two inch-long fangs sinking into the meaty flesh of Flint’s lower leg, just above the ankle.

 

Flint screamed when he felt the fangs sink in and the hemotoxin begin to take effect on his flesh. He knew he had to calm down quickly; otherwise his racing heart would cause the toxin to spread rapidly throughout his body and enhance its damaging effects.

 

Baroness calmly returned the Malayan to the fish tank, where the snake happily settled back down into the slithering mass. Once the tank was closed and secure, she found the label for the pit viper’s antivenin mixture and dangled the bottle in front of Flint.

 

“This contains twenty-four doses of antivenin in a saline suspension, ready to be administered as an intravenous medication,” the Baroness said. “And your friend, the prison’s Medi-Viper, is waiting to hook you up and get your treatment started. Can you feel the pain? You should tell me something right now before the venom takes hold.”

 

Baroness reached for Flint’s leg where the pit viper had sunk its fangs in. The skin around the two puncture marks was already turning red and starting to swell. “If this goes untreated, Flint, the flesh around your ankle will become necrotic and has to be debreeded surgically. You could even lose your foot if the flesh deteriorates enough and the Medi-Viper has to amputate it to save your life. Since we don’t have surgical facilities here to do the debreeding, you’re going to be stuck with the old-fashioned maggot therapy method to get the dead flesh off the healthy stuff in time.”

 

Flint was actually scared, and he thought he could feel the snake’s venom coursing through his veins. He willed himself to calm down, and he tried to slow his throbbing heart down so that the poison wouldn’t damage anything more vital in his systems.

 

While Flint was trying to will himself to counter the snake venom, it looked like his skin pallor was draining from his body. His head stayed stiffly still and his lips didn’t move, not even to beg for help. Flint’s legs hung limply and he fought the urge to move them to make sure that he could still feel them.

 

Baroness smiled at Flint’s pained body, satisfied that she had gotten the initial effect that she wanted. She summoned the Medi-Viper into the interrogation room and had a wheeled gurney brought in. Two guards quickly unshackled Flint and restrained him on the gurney while the Medi-Viper silently set up the intravenous needle for Flint’s arm and the life-restoring antivenin. She made sure to keep emergency injectors of epinephrine handy in case Flint began to have an anaphylactic reaction to the antivenin, which some people had due to allergies to the components.

 

Before leaving the room to meet with Lieutenant Deming concerning Crypto’s torture and interrogation plan, she brushed her hand softly across Flint’s cheek. “I warned you,” the Baroness said. “This is just a taste. You will give me what I want, in more ways than one, especially if you want to see daylight again.”

 

***

 

Cobra Forward Operating Base (FOB) “Krait 5”

Border area southeast of As-Salman

Al-Muthanna Province, Iraq

1600 hours, local time

 

The Cobra regimental S-2 officer paced back and forth next to his French-built Panhard VBL 4x4 armored reconnaissance car, a vehicle that he had appropriated in a hurry to get down to the remote desert site a few miles north of the Iraqi-Saudi border.

 

Camp “Krait 5” was a battalion forward command post of the 104th Cobra Regiment, which also controlled the operations of an Iraqi Republican Guard independent tank brigade. Because of its close proximity to Allied forces, the camp was assigned an organic aviation force of two air cavalry troops, a total of twenty FANG III light attack helicopters, and a detachment of larger transport choppers for logistics.

 

The regimental intelligence staffer finally stopped his pacing when his companion, a senior non-commissioned officer from the regimental operations (S-3) department, returned with the FANG pilot that had been requested.

 

“Has the Master Sergeant briefed you, CLAWS pilot?” the nervous Captain asked as the Cobra CLAWS pilot stood to attention and saluted.

 

“Yes, sir, Cap’n,” the CLAWS pilot replied. “I go over the line to drop an escape package for one of our agents in the frontier zone. I’m shit hot and ready to fly, sir!”

 

“Very well,” the Captain replied. He withdrew a small locator display that had been tuned to Blackout’s beacon frequency and passed it to the CLAWS pilot, who clipped it right to his flight suit. “I’m ordering a rolling artillery barrage from the Brigade Artillery to begin in thirty minutes. That will tie up the patrols and defenses long enough for you to drop the package. It’s the agent’s job to get himself out with the CLAW jet glider you’re carrying over the line. You just roll in hot, drop the load and clear out. Clear?”

 

“Crystal, sir,” the CLAWS pilot replied. He nodded his head in the direction of his FANG crew chief, who was making a thumbs-up sign that the helicopter was ready to go.

 

“Okay, get your ass in the air, trooper,” the Captain said, clapping the CLAWS pilot on the shoulder.

 

***

 

1630 hours, the border trace

 

A column of ten M-1A2 Abrams main battle tanks and four M-2A3 Bradley infantry vehicles rolled east to west in a long, spread out formation. The company patrol team moved quickly along a predetermined route that ran parallel to the border where they could act as the Allies’ tripwire. The heavily armored unit was the only line of defense between the massing Cobra and Iraqi forces to their north and their battalion’s AO sector headquarters situated along the Tap-Line Road. The other units in the battalion task force were encamped in platoon fire bases spread out around the battalion AO to maintain the security of the sector.

 

Captain Mike Stewart, an Armor officer who was put in charge of Team “Tequila”, poked his head out of the commander’s hatch of his M-1A2 and scanned the open desert around his tank. The company command Abrams was running west just behind the lead tank platoon, so Stewart had a rough time seeing past the clouds of swirling dust the quartet of tanks ahead of him were kicking up. But to his flanks, north and south, his sight picture was good.

 

“Roberts,” Captain Stewart said over the tank’s intercom to his gunner, Sergeant First Class Jake Roberts. “What’s our next waypoint?”

 

“We’re approaching Road Junction Twelve, Cap,” the gunner replied after studying the map display on his IVIS system. “Should be another two klicks before we cross it, sir.”

 

“Good,” the captain noted out loud. “We’re about due for a break.” Stewart grabbed onto the boom mike attached to his CVC, or Combat Vehicle Crewman, helmet, shielding the audio pickup from the loud noises around the tank with his hand. “Tequila Six to all Tequila elements. We’re going to stop at the next road junction for a smoke break and check in with the battalion camp. Lead platoon will orient west in wedge formation and the trail tanks will face the turrets east and northeast. Bradleys, raise and arm your TOW launchers in case we get a snake in the grass while the column’s stopped. Two klicks to halt point. Tequila Six out.”

 

“Tequila One-Six, roger that,” replied the lead tank platoon commander over the SINCGARS radio net. The veteran first lieutenant’s voice was quickly followed by the Texas drawl of the mechanized platoon commander in Tequila Two-Six.

 

After a few moments’ delay, the rookie platoon leader in Tequila Three-Six also called in that he received his new orders, most likely after being urged by his platoon sergeant or Tequila Five, the company team’s executive officer, who was riding with the trailing platoon in his command tank.

 

Following a few minutes’ worth of cruising at full off-road speed, the point tank of the patrol called in excitedly. “Captain, sir! Tequila Six, this is Tequila One-One. Spot Report! There’s a disabled Hum-vee ‘bout a half a klick south of the road junction. I can’t tell if it’s been bushwhacked or belongs to a supply team rolling through.”

 

“One-One, roger that,” Captain Stewart replied. “Tequila One-Five, Platoon Sergeant Jacobs, detach from the column with One-One and check out that vehicle. Everyone else, laager up at the road junction according to orders.”

 

“Tequila One-Five, breaking loose,” Sergeant First Class Tommy Jacobs, the first platoon’s top kick, replied. “Pop a cold one for us when we get back.”

 

***

 

Meanwhile, just over the border:

 

“This is GSR OP sixteen calling Krait Five, over,” a Tele-Viper said quietly into his tactical radio. He crouched behind a low earthen berm under a section of camouflage netting next to his radar surveillance team’s modified Stinger jeep. The lonely observation post was normally quiet, except it had been detailed to spot for the agent recovery operation that was about to kick off.

 

“Krait Five Operations,” a Tele-Viper in the forward command post’s tactical operations center replied. “Go with SITREP. Ready to copy.”

 

“OP sixteen. I have fourteen blips on the radar scope, less than half a klick from your bull’s-eye target point. Looks like an armored company or mechanized infantry. An element detached from the main body and the remainder halted at a trail junction. It looks like they’re forming a laager.”

 

The Captain from the 104th Cobra Regiment’s S-2 section cringed when he heard the situation report that was transmitted to the Krait Five TOC. He swore to himself after studying the map of the border area. “God damn it! That unit’s gonna make our job a hundred times harder. Order the Maggot batteries to commence the rolling barrage. And let’s hope our guy has the presence of wit to keep his fuckin’ head down.”

 

The S-2 leaned over one of the TOC workstations and keyed in a radio that connected to an artillery fire command post close to the front lines. “Copperhead Three-Nine, this is Krait Five Operations. Fire mission. Target Reference Point 11258. Rolling barrage south to 500 meters from bull’s-eye. Enemy heavy vehicles in the open. Employ VT Quick and Smoke. I want them to think we’re launching a chemical strike. Commence fire at your discretion.”

 

***

 

Tequila One-Five peeled away to the south of the patrol column’s line of travel, followed by his wingman in One-One. The veteran platoon sergeant spotted the open-topped Hummer ahead of his vehicle. After a few seconds of studying the mysteriously abandoned-looking utility truck, the sergeant spotted movement, a dark shape that had been sitting in the shade of the truck near one of the wheel wells.

 

“Shit,” Sergeant Jacobs swore, looking twice through his binoculars to be sure he didn’t see a mirage. He keyed his radio to call his wingman and alert his crew as well. “One-One, this is One-Five. I have movement at the Hum-vee. Loaders, pop up in the turrets and stand by your co-ax machineguns. Everyone else, keep your eyes peeled. Break out our aid kits, just in case that’s a casualty.”

 

Blackout had opted to doze lightly in the shade of the Hummer and had been out for a while, since his orders were to light off his evacuation beacon and sit tight in radio silence for what was loosely described as “you’ll know it when you see it” when his penetration job began.

 

When the roar of the Abrams’ gas turbine engines wafted across the desert floor, Blackout had thought they were a mirage – simply a dust devil of sand rising from the ground and the heat playing with his senses. But when the cloud was coming his way, and two large boxy shapes materialized out of the swirling sand, Blackout knew that he had been discovered by an American patrol.

 

The enemy agent glanced at his Timex military-grade watch – it had been almost two hours since he set the beacon and took up his patient waiting position. His employers were surely taking their sweet time to get his cookies out of the proverbial fire. Trying not to move around too much, Blackout glanced into the rear passenger seat of the Hummer, where two disposable launch tubes for M-136 AT-4 missiles had been strapped into place by the movement control unit from which he stole the truck.

 

It was Army SOP to provide some form of armament, even to logistics units, when convoying equipment close to the battle lines, for self-protection. Blackout doubted the AT-4 would do much to the sloped and layered Chobham armor of the Abrams, but it would surely scare the shit out of the crews if they didn’t buy his story.

 

The tanks halted about twenty meters from Blackout’s Hummer and the banshee wail of their gas turbines steadily wound down to a whine and small hisses where the exhaust venting and NBC overpressure systems let off excess gases.

 

A man climbed out of the lead tank and slid down the sloped turret armor to the Abrams’ main deck, while a second popped out of a hatch and manned the vehicle’s co-axial 7.62mm light machine gun. In the distance, about forty meters away from Blackout, the rear tank made a steel grinding sound as hidden electrical motors rotated the turret north. The vehicle crews were executing a standard wing pair security drill while Sergeant Jacobs prepared to approach the Hummer.

 

Jacobs made no attempt to hide that he was packing heat. A 9mm Beretta was strapped to his hip in a standard military holster, and the tanker carried a shortened M-231 sub-machinegun, which had been designed for the firing ports of the Bradley IFV. The small size of the SMG made it ideal as an alternative to the full-sized M-16A2 rifle or M-4A1 carbine that tank crews were often issued on the front lines.

 

A small green case with a universal red-cross symbol stenciled on a white circular background was slung over the tank jockey’s shoulder. The cautious sergeant addressed Blackout from a distance, with his M-231 at the ready.

 

“Yo! Don’t make any sudden moves and identify yourself!” Sergeant Jacobs shouted from the main deck of his tank.

 

“Corporal Lavallette, 919th Movement Control Team, out of King Khalid!” Blackout yelled back. “I was tail-end Charlie on a convoy and had to drop back to find some trucks that fell out of line. I ended up breaking down myself and had to radio for a tow!”

 

Jacobs kept his distance, glancing to his right and catching the eye of his tank driver, who was watching the activity through the vision blocks of his station. The driver shrugged, as if unsure what Jacobs wanted him to do.

 

Jacobs finally walked down the glacis plate of the tank and dropped lithely to the sandy desert floor. He kept his weapon ready and glanced in every direction as he approached Blackout’s spot.

 

“I’m Sergeant First Class Jacobs with Bravo Company, Third of the Six Nine Armor,” Jacobs said by way of introductions. “Are you injured, Corporal?”

 

“Just trying to beat the heat until my recovery arrives, Sarge,” Blackout said, getting onto his feet and keeping his hands visible to prove his good health.

 

Jacobs reached behind his back and unbuttoned the case for his plastic Army canteen. Retrieving the small vessel, he passed it to Blackout. “Why don’t you wet your whistle for a bit then? We’ll go call in for you and find out about your tow.”

 

Blackout accepted the canteen and took a long drag of the cool water. Apparently the Abrams crew’s vehicle air conditioner worked awfully well when the armored box was buttoned up. The water went down cool and smoothly. Jacobs turned back to his tank and flashed his loader a thumbs-up before finding the foothold in the vehicle’s side skirt and climbing up to the main deck once more.

 

“Hey, Ski,” Jacobs called to Specialist Uleski, his tank gunner. “Get Battalion on the horn and pass the word that we’re looking for a tow vehicle out ‘ere. This Hummer’s disabled, from the Nine-one-nine Movement Control outta King Khalid. Report our position and have the recovery rerouted to us.”

 

“You got it, boss,” Uleski replied from within the tank, as Blackout made like he was absently poking around the passenger seats of his vehicle. He was really un-securing the anti-tank rockets and reaching for the automatic that he had left lying on the Hummer’s center column before falling asleep. He was lucky that Jacobs hadn’t seen it and gotten suspicious as to why the disguised agent didn’t have the weapon on his body while he was so close to the enemy.

 

Blackout walked over to the Abrams and reached up the empty canteen to Jacobs, who sat on the thick glacis plate of the tank, dabbing at his forehead with a terrycloth towel. “Thanks for the water,” the agent said, leaning against the solid steel side skirt of the tank casually. “What are you troops doing out here by yourselves?”

 

“We’re not alone,” Jacobs replied, pointing north along the trace. “We’re part of a company team on frontier patrol. They’re just over those dunes at the junction where this trace meets our patrol route, a half klick out...”

 

***

 

Captain Stewart stretched his arms and listened to the cacophony of the engines of his company’s vehicles slowly die into a dull roar. The mixed group of vehicles followed their halting drill precisely, moving right into a textbook defensive posture when he called for the patrol to stop.

 

At first, the captain’s ears didn’t discern the KARUMPH sound of the first volley of Maggot artillery rounds impacting north of his position. But rapidly rising columns of dark smoke and the steadily increasing concussions of the air around the shells being displaced caught his attention.

 

Sergeant First Class Roberts, who was climbing out of the loader’s top hatch to stretch his legs, spotted the rolling clouds of smoke and a pair of air-bursts that looked like what the battalion intelligence guys told them to be on the lookout for. He tugged on the sleeve of the captain’s Nomex armor crew coveralls and pointed north. “Cap’n, sir! Air bursts to our north! It could be an Iraqi arty raid with chemical munitions!”

 

Stewart’s company net radio crackled to life as everyone spotted the rolling barrage and started frantically reporting in. He had to react swiftly to quiet the overlapping chatter and issue his commands.

 

“Pipe down, all Tequila elements!” Stewart shouted. “Get everyone in MOPP III! Infantry dismounts need to suit up to MOPP IV! Stay with your mounts and start ‘em up! Button down as soon as you can while I raise the battalion! XO, Call One-One and One-Five and get them back here! This could be a lead-off for an enemy probe!”

 

***

 

A half kilometer south of Tequila Six:

 

“Jesus Christ!” Uleski shouted over the tank’s intercom set. “Did you catch that? There’s a chemical attack inbound!”

 

“MOPP III, all of you!” Jacobs shouted, sprinting to the turret and reaching for a handhold to hoist himself back into his commander’s cupola. “Driver, turn her over and let’s get this pig iron hauling ass again!”

 

Once SFC Jacobs had slipped into his position, he realized that he never noticed a chemical warfare MOPP suit kit with Blackout. He knew his SOP well, and having one’s MOPP suit close at hand was just as important as having one’s sidearm. And his crew had none to spare. Jacobs saw Blackout rummaging in the rear seat of the Hummer and thought the “Corporal” was scrambling to find his set.

 

Blackout didn’t know what was coming, and doubted for a moment whether his beacon was working at all. Although he figured Cobra would be well coordinated on the other side of the border, there could always be the chance that an overzealous field commander was running an op on his own and that Blackout was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. He also figured that any extraction wouldn’t happen if there were two armored behemoths sitting right on the pickup LZ.

 

Jacobs rotated the cupola towards the disabled Hummer to see if Blackout had his MOPP gear on. What he saw almost froze him completely. Blackout had picked up an AT-4 launch tube and was leveling it at the space between the turret ring and the main deck of the tank, comparatively the most vulnerable part (if there was one at all) of the heavy warrior.

 

Blackout pinched his eyes to aim through the simplistic iron sights at Jacobs’ tank, and when he was satisfied that he was looking at the sweet spot, he pressed down on the firing trigger.

 

The rocket lanced over to Jacobs’ Abrams like a fiery meteor and struck the vehicle between the turret ring and main deck. But because the turret was slewing to the north, Blackout ended up hitting the thickly-armored ammunition bins. The AT-4’s shaped charge did punch through the turret ring, though, and jammed it as well as filled the turret itself with thick, acrid smoke.

 

“Shit! We’re hit!” Uleski shouted from his position, as the tank’s loader practically knocked himself out when he leaped up to try avoiding where the round struck the turret.

 

“Grab your MOPP IV gear, weapons and ammo, leave everything else behind!” Jacobs yelled, reaching for the unlocking handle to his hatch and working it open. “And someone make sure to erase that sonofabitch Lavallette out there! He’s the one that shot us!”

 

Tequila One-One wasn’t even paying attention to Blackout and One-Five because the crew was also desperately trying to get into their level III MOPP gear. Blackout took a shot at the wingman’s tank, the shaped charge warhead ricocheting off the vehicle’s glacis plate and ripping right into the driver’s compartment. The unlucky driver had opened his hatch to let a little sunlight in when the vehicles stopped to inspect the Hummer, and his lack of tactical discipline literally invited the missile into the tank.

 

Small fires erupted in the driver’s compartment of One-One when the warhead struck. Although the driver’s coverall was fire-resistant Nomex, it didn’t do him any good because the rocket had decapitated the soldier on its way in.

 

***

 

“Fan out immediately as soon as the fuckin’ engines are going!” Captain Stewart yelled angrily across his company command net. “Get these pigs moving and turn ‘em north! Use the NBC suppression gear and get ready for trouble!”

 

“Captain! I see air bursts and smoke above the desert surface!” Sergeant Roberts yelled in a scared voice. “We definitely have a chemical attack incoming!” The master tank gunner didn’t realize he was repeating himself.

 

“I heard you!” Stewart shouted in return. “Get your gun loaded and charge the day sight! We’re down at least four tanks, including the XO. I need you with me, Roberts!”

 

Roberts calmed down and settled into his gunner’s chair, gripping onto the turret control handles as he pressed his face against the large eye shield that surrounded his targeting scope. “Hooah! I’m with you, sir!”

 

“All tanks, seal up and engage the Phalanx overpressure systems!” Stewart yelled over his command net. He watched through the armored Plexiglas vision blocks at his station while the M-1A2’s and M-2A3’s belched columns of white smoke. Soon the lead element, First Platoon’s Tequila One-Two and One-Six, lurched forward.

 

The Abrams tanks didn’t get far, as the Maggot artillery fire zeroed in on the road junction, guided and directed by the ground surveillance radar observation post on the border. Tanks Tequila One-Two, Zero-Five (the company XO), Three-One and Three-Six (who were to the rear of the column) all brewed up violently in tall columns of fire and debris as high explosive rounds from the Maggots smashed into the thinner top armor and penetrated into the vehicles.

 

“Fan out and evade!” Stewart yelled, trying his best to keep calm, as additional rounds fell within the laager and threatened to destroy his entire command.

 

***

 

The seven American tankers bailed out of their smoking vehicles, angered that someone that seemed to be just another G.I. on the surface was trying to kill them. The men clambered down to the sand from their armored behemoths and began firing in the direction of the Hummer.

 

Blackout hid behind the left rear wheel of the utility truck, trading fire from his pistol with the tank crewmen. Bullets from the Americans’ M-231 sub-machineguns and Beretta pistols rattled and clanged as they ricocheted off the thin sheet steel skin of the unarmored HMMWV. Blackout had to make sure the emergency beacon was still going and then tucked the transmitter back into his pocket.

 

Out of the swirling smoke and dust over Blackout’s position, a dark shape descended from the sky. The CLAWS pilot had gotten in close to make sure he didn’t deliver his cargo to the wrong recipient, and decided that it was high time to get into the fight.

 

Jacobs was spraying rounds wildly at the Hummer with his sub-machinegun when the powerful blast of rotor wash almost knocked him off his feet. He looked sideways through the hood of his MOPP headgear and gas mask, only to see his fellow tankers going down from a more deadly blast. The twin Vulcan guns on the nose of the FANG III rattled and spat fire into the cluster of soldiers, killing the unprotected men mercilessly. It was only a matter of moments before SFC Jacobs was also cut down by the marauding Cobra chopper.

 

Blackout shielded his eyes as the FANG hovered above him. The belly rocket launcher had been replaced by a boxy pod, and the Cobra pilot didn’t even make an attempt to touch down. When the pilot leaned over the edge of his open cockpit and waved for Blackout to get clear, the pod dropped softly to the ground, throwing up a cloud of sand where it fell. With a quick zigzag, the FANG III disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, at the road junction, the American company team was rolling once more, less the six vehicles lost in the Maggot barrage and Blackout’s surprise attack. Captain Stewart was frantically shouting his situation report over the airwaves to his battalion command post, warning his fellow tankers and mechanized infantrymen to be ready for an attack anywhere along the front.

 

“Where the fuck did Jacobs’ section go?” Stewart shouted at the lieutenant in charge of First Platoon’s four M-1 Abrams tanks.

 

His radio crackled and sputtered for a moment before the terse reply came from First Platoon’s agitated commander. “Tequila One-Six. I have no fucking clue, Tequila Six. Want me to go back an’ look for ‘em, sir? Or do you want me to take my non-existent platoon and kick Iraqi ass? Someone had better tell me, ‘cause I can’t fight the Iraqi Army by myself!”

 

“Link up with me on point, One-Six, and keep your wits, Lieutenant!” Stewart ordered, watching as the lead Abrams slowed and angled its direction of travel towards the company command tank. “This company lost a lot of good men already! We don’t have time for your static!”

 

***

 

“OP Sixteen to Krait Five Ops,” the radar surveillance post reported over their radio channel. “We count ten blips still moving. They’ve all turned north in a gaggle and are making a run to the frontier.”

 

“Krait Five, roger that,” replied a controller in the TOC, who quickly changed channels on his radio relay station. “Copperhead Three-Nine, this is Krait Five Ops. Adjust fire. One point five klicks north of original TRP. Eight armored vehicles in the open and spread out. Employ 152mm Shillelagh terminal guidance HEAT warheads. Fire for effect!”

 

***

 

Blackout walked over to the cargo pod after the FANG became a tiny black spot on the horizon. After taking the time between the drop and the helicopter’s disappearance to shake his fist at the air and swear a blue streak at the lazy fucking so-and-so pilot, the infiltrator decided that he had better see what they left him before trying to strike out on his own.

 

After Blackout popped loose the quick release cargo tie straps, the container sprang open on its own and a CLAW jet glider unfolded at his feet.

 

So that had been the plan all along, Blackout thought. Unable to commit an unarmed transport, and with security on the border so tightly watched by both sides, the only way to get him out was to cause mayhem and disorder and leave it to his escape skills to get him back to the safe zone. Wonderful.

 

The infiltrator checked the CLAW quickly, since he had been trained to pre-flight the gliders in case he had to use them on missions. The fuel bladders had been filled with an experimental gelled fuel that combined the highly volatile JP-5 used in jet fighters with a thicker, unrefined form of crude oil as a suspension.

 

Blackout had to pop a panel near the small jet engines to prime the escape glider. In the cargo pod, a small automotive spark plug and a can of commercial barbecue lighter fluid had been wrapped up in a sealed bag. Blackout opened up the bag and inserted the spark plug into its receptacle in the CLAW ignition compartment. When the spark plug wiring was attached, the agent turned to the can of lighter fluid. The high-octane, quick-burning fuel was poured into a small combustion chamber, and then the ignition system’s access panel was sealed up.

 

The “escape glider” version of the CLAW was very different than the one used by Cobra’s glider-borne assault troops. Built for speed and ease of launch by a single operator, the CLAW had no weapons fitted, and used up almost 95% of its one hundred pound takeoff weight in fuel. Blackout hoisted the mini jet onto his shoulders and found the igniter button with his right thumb.

 

The escape glider used gelled fuel to reduce the risk of fire when dropping the fully loaded unit to its intended user. Priming the system with lighter fluid and the essential part of the ignition (the spark plug) allowed enough heat to be generated to break down the gelled fuel and ignite it like any unmodified jet fuels. Although the fuel was less efficient, it got the job done, providing a maximum range of fifty miles. That was why Blackout had to be close to the border when he needed to be extracted.

 

***

 

Four Abrams tanks and four Bradley infantry fighting vehicles charged north without even wondering if they had friendly forces’ fire support on their side. None of the crews could hear the banshee roar of the incoming Shillelagh top-attack anti-tank missiles.

 

All of a sudden, the tanks’ threat warning receivers picked up the radar signals coming from the Shillelagh warheads, which bought them a few moments of warning, and still no chance of escape.

 

The first Shillelagh connected with a Bradley, lancing through its TOW II folding launcher box and detonating the loaded missiles with a loud KABOOM. The missile itself ripped open the rear deck of the Bradley and spread tongues of flame and cascades of molten metal into the troop compartment, instantly incinerating the mounted troops inside.

 

In the space of three minutes, the Shillelagh barrage completely wiped out the infantry vehicles and destroyed three of the four Abrams. Captain Stewart’s command tank was the only survivor, having been hit in the flank by the Shillelagh that had locked onto it. With the track thrown completely off and half the vehicle’s steel road wheels sinking into the soft sand, the hapless captain and his tank crew wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

 

***

 

Blackout ignited the engine on his CLAW escape glider and felt the gentle roar and vibration of the flying machine against his back. He plodded forward, trying to break into a run. As he moved, he bent at the waist so that the engines could kick him forward.

 

With the engines pushing him in the right direction, Blackout could feel the air start to move against his flesh while the CLAW started to generate lift. After about fifty agonizing steps, the CLAW took flight and Blackout was able to straighten his legs out and climb the powered glider into the air.

 

The Cobra infiltrator flew due north, over the carnage that had been wreaked by the Maggot bombardment on the American company team’s column. After about ten klicks of flying, Blackout spotted signs of the Cobra and Iraqi border defenses. Blue-uniformed Cobra advisors and their tan-uniformed Iraqi conscript charges stood up in their trenches and fighting holes to wave at the white glider with its Cobra sigils painted on the wings. They had already been warned to keep their guns silent until the glider passed safely by.

 

When Blackout identified the nested triangular shape of an Iraqi company fighting camp, he aimed the glider for the cluster of command vehicles and motor pool situated at the camp’s center. Killing the jet engine, the enemy sniper cruised in and brought the CLAW to a safe landing on his feet.

 

***

 

In the smoldering M-1A2 Abrams belonging to Sergeant First Class Tommy Jacobs, the data link at his commander’s station came to life with the last volts of battery power in the stricken vehicle. The SINCGARS radio brought down a short text message that would be displayed to no human being it was intended for.

 

“Tequila One-Five; 919 MCT; disabled HMMWV; No recovery ordered; Suspect vehicle stolen from 919 MCT motor pool at KKMC; KKMC SEC COM advises to arrest and hold any occupants. Respond with status of vehicle and occupants...”

 

***

 

“With every victory in war, comes a terrible price.”

 

-Anonymous


	23. Beware False Icons

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter 18.5 (NC-17)

Beware False Icons

 

Saddam Military Prison

Section Seven

Baghdad, Iraq

 

***

 

Flint’s concentration on cutting through the ropes that bound him was broken by the clang of the main hallway’s entry gate, and three pairs of footsteps. There was also a shuffling sound, like something heavy was being dragged along the rocky floor and was resisting the movement.

 

The chief jailer walked down the hall, whistling a tune and rolling his key ring on his fingers as he unlocked the cell across from Flint’s. Flint held up on the struggle to free his hands as he watched two Cobra Troopers drag a hunched-over body into the cell and drop the man onto the cell’s bed rack.

 

After the guards departed, the man stirred. He moved slowly, as if in a lot of pain. In the dim ambient light, Flint could pick out a desert battle dress uniform of US pattern on the man, albeit torn to tatters in several places. When the man sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed a swollen eye with his hand, Flint immediately recognized him.

 

“Crypto!” Flint called out in a low voice so the guard wouldn’t hear. “Crypto, it’s Flint! Wake up, kid, I’m in the cell across from you!”

 

Crypto took his hand away from his eye and slowly trudged up to the edge of the cell, as Flint cautiously got to his feet and came to the edge as well. Flint gasped when he saw that Crypto was nursing a very bad shiner in one eye, and his cheeks were puffed as if they had been slapped and punched repeatedly. Older unhealed welts were still visible on his flesh, from his previous ordeal with the Vipers inside of Camp Al-Shu’a.

 

As soon as Crypto could make out Flint’s face in the opposite cell, his eyes seemed to light up. “Damn, kid, you look like hell,” Flint joked, trying to put a spark of hope into Crypto, whose face hung dejectedly, like he had given up. “How long have these snakes had you here?”

 

Crypto’s eyes burned with a renewed fire when he saw his fellow Joe. But just in case Cobra had planted bugs in the cells he stuck to a cover story, which was a complete lie. “I think it’s been a day or two. I don’t know for sure because I was injured when I got here. I was caught when leading Deep Six, Mainframe, Shipwreck, Torpedo and Wet Suit on an infiltration raid at the Baghdad main telephone exchange. I was separated from the fire team by a grenade salvo, and about fifty Vipers got the better of me. Well, it felt like fifty of them... I killed a few before they were able to disarm me, and then they kicked the crap out of me and brought me here.”

 

Crypto’s voice slowed a bit and he coughed as he fought to catch his breath. He clutched at his chest where he had absorbed a number of hits from wooden batons and Viper jackboots. “The Baroness is here. She and a Crimson Guard officer have been trying to get information from me concerning our mission taskings, manpower and operations. I’ve been able to hold out so far with the beatings and the other kinky shit she’s been trying, but if they turn to truth drugs or something, I won’t be able to hack it. They’ll probably get something out of me.”

 

Flint wanted badly to be in the cell with Crypto, just to assure him things would be all right and that they still had a fighting chance of survival. “Baroness will probably start on me soon, and she’ll take the heat off of you because I potentially know a lot more about our campaign and operations. Just keep the faith, kid, and we’re going to bust out of this sewer. I promise you, we’ll get back to our buddies.”

 

***

 

Several hours later:

 

Flint and Crypto woke out of their light slumber simultaneously as the sounds of slow, deliberate footsteps echoed through the dungeon. Baroness stepped up to the cells that held the two Joes and looked them over as the chief jailer retrieved his master cell key.

 

“I think I will give the G. I. Joe intelligence analyst a chance to rest and reconsider his silence today. It appears our troops have landed a much bigger prize. Hello, Flint,” Baroness said, casting an evil smile in his direction. “I’m going to enjoy having a long talk with you about the G. I. Joe operations in Baghdad. Undoubtedly, you’ve had a hand in their planning and probably have all sorts of good tidbits floating around your head.”

 

Flint rolled up into a sitting position and shrugged his shoulders. He had been able to sever the ropes around his wrists and was now playing possum. “I see you’re up to your old tricks, Baroness. Where is the honor in torturing the kid over there the way you’ve been when he knows nothing but his own orders? Why don’t you try picking on someone worth your while?”

 

Baroness leaned closer to the cell door and said quietly, “Oh, Flint, I intend to.” She motioned for the officer to unlock Flint’s cell, and two burly Desert Scorpions moved into view. “I will take this one today. Desert Scorpions, take charge of the prisoner and bring him to interrogation room number two.”

 

Flint saw Crypto mouthing the words `be careful’ as the chief jailer unlocked his cell. Baroness and the Desert Scorpions looked on as the officer waved a finger at Flint, summoning him over.

 

Flint slowly got to his feet and trudged over to the officer, who was just standing inside the cell. When he got to within reach of the jailer, Flint balled up his fists and broke loose of the ropes, yelling, “YO, JOE!” Swinging his right hand instinctively, he brought a hard right cross to the jailer’s chin and sent him flying out into the corridor.

 

Baroness backed off, calling out to the Desert Scorpions, “Stop him, you fools! Get him under control!” Flint charged out into the hallway after the jailer, reaching for his key ring.

 

The jailer kept a good grip on his keys as he steadied himself and reached for Flint’s throat. Flint struck the Cobra again with a hard left punch to the center of his face, and the officer crumpled, dropping the keys onto the floor with a loud clatter.

 

The Desert Scorpions had been leaning on the opposite wall when Flint began his counter-attack. One of them leapt for Flint once the jailer had been put down, angrily swinging his fists. As the other moved to jump on Flint as well, Crypto ran to the front of his cell and reached through the bars, catching hold of the second trooper’s LBE harness.

 

Crypto threw all of his weight in the direction opposite the way the Desert Scorpion was moving, and hauled the soldier right up against the bars of his cell, the impact knocking the Cobra trooper out cold.

 

Flint caught the approach of the Desert Scorpion in his peripheral vision as he dropped to one knee to find the jailer’s keys. Leaning all his weight on his right side, he flared his left leg out in a snap kick and connected with the Scorpion’s crotch. Clutching his injured jewels, the Cobra trooper fell back and groaned in agony.

 

Rising back onto his feet, Flint turned toward the Baroness and reached a meaty fist out to wrap it around her neck. Baroness stepped back into a wide stance and kicked out with her high-heeled boots. She landed her kick square into Flint’s gut, causing him to double over in pain. But Flint stayed undeterred, throwing himself forward and reaching again for her.

 

Baroness reached behind her back, and withdrew a short stick with sharp metal points on the end. As Flint charged, she stuck the pointy end into his side, and her thumb pressed down on a nub built into the handle.

 

Flint felt an electric sensation after Baroness prodded him with the stick, and he struggled to maintain his forward movement. Suddenly all of his muscles convulsed uncontrollably, painfully tightening up as he felt the electricity course through his body and he slipped into unconsciousness.

 

Crypto charged at the door to his cell, reaching to help his teammate. The Baroness defensively swung the stun-stick around and jammed it between the cell’s bars, shocking Crypto through his left arm and making him fall flat onto the ground in pain.

 

The Baroness drew her automatic pistol and trained it on Flint’s writhing body as the three Cobra troopers regained their composure and piled onto the Warrant Officer, securing him with manacles and chains. “Now take him away, fools!” Baroness ordered. When the troops lifted Flint up by his shoulders, she grabbed onto his chin and lifted his face to where she could look into his eyes. “That outburst is going to cost you dearly, Flint. I have plans for you.”

 

***

 

Flint woke up feeling the soft sensation of lying on high-quality Egyptian cotton bedclothes. He turned his face slowly, still feeling severe tightness in his muscles from the stun-stick’s effects, but the gentle feeling of the bed sheets and the fact his head rested on a thick, soft pillow made him think he was far from the combat zone.

 

As his vision cleared, Flint tried to move his hands up to rub his eyes, and discovered that chains held his wrists and ankles immobile. When he could lower his chin comfortably, he found that he was lying on a simple hospital bed, stripped nude and chained down in a spread-eagle position. He didn’t know how long the stun-stick had kept him knocked out, or whether anything was done to Crypto in retaliation for the escape attempt.

 

Flint looked around the room, to see if there was anything lying around that he could use to his advantage. The room where he was being held looked like a prison infirmary, with locked cabinets lining the walls and a large spotlight in the center of the room. Tools or implements of any variety weren’t visible, probably all locked away for safe keeping, and the room was kept immaculately neat otherwise, with a place for every piece of furniture or equipment.

 

There was a television mounted on a swing arm in the corner over the bed, and there was a telephone and intercom panel next to the door along with the light switches. A dark plastic dome mounted in the ceiling probably hid a surveillance camera, and it was likely Baroness was already watching as Flint stirred back into consciousness.

 

***

 

A few minutes later, the metal door to Flint’s interrogation room opened and Baroness stepped in. Oddly enough, she wasn’t attired in her normal leather body-hugging coverall. She wore a silken bathrobe, and carried a long, leather riding crop and coiled cat o’ nine tails whip in with her. The infamous stun-stick hung loosely from a lanyard, which she hung on a convenient wall peg.

 

“Ah, Flint, it’s good to see you conscious again. I hope for your sake that you do not make any more attempts to leave us. I would hate to put you out again with my stun-stick.” She walked over to the bed and ran a fingernail up Flint’s body from his feet all the way to his cheek, where she cupped his face with her hand under his chin. “You are quite a man, Chief Warrant Officer Faireborn. Yes, quite a man, indeed.”

 

Flint struggled against his chains and turned his face aside, trying to pull it from Baroness’ grasp. “Yeah, yeah, so take my nude photo and print me in your Cobra Hunks Calendar for 2003. While you’re at it, you could let me loose and show me the head so I can take a leak. How the Hell long have I been trussed up like your favorite blow-up doll?”

 

Baroness tightened her grip on Flint’s jaw and roughly turned his face back to where she could look at his expressions. She wore an evil smile and her eyes glowed with the anticipation of something. “Your quick wit amuses me, Flint. You’ve missed quite a bit. We have taken another Joe prisoner. She’s one that I think you know particularly well.”

 

Flint strained to show no emotion or reaction to the news. “Don’t mistreat the other Joe prisoners. You have me. I’ll take the bruises for them all.”

 

Baroness clucked her tongue as she brought her face within millimeters of his. She pinched his lips shut as she saw him try to gargle up a dollop of spit. “How gallant, Flint, how selfless of you. But after my successes with the other two, they won’t need to be taking any bruises from me for a long time.”

 

Flint was shocked. He suspected that Baroness had somehow broken Crypto with truth drugs while he was knocked out, and the other prisoner... well... she could be lying to him about having another prisoner, to get him to loosen his tongue and talk to save their lives.

 

Baroness backed away from Flint, reaching above his head for the television set that was mounted on its adjustable arm and hinged to the wall, like sets that outfitted hospital rooms everywhere. She pulled the rig down to Flint’s eye level and faced the tube towards him. “I’ve been enjoying this particular show, Flint. Let’s see what today’s soap opera will bring.”

 

Before Baroness turned on the TV set, Flint hissed angrily at her. “Where are your manners, Baroness? Where’s my Coke and bucket of popcorn?”

 

Baroness shook her head and whacked Flint hard across the front of his thighs with her riding crop, and he winced in pain from the sensation. “You will soon learn not to take such an acidic tongue with me, Chief Warrant Officer Dashiell Faireborn.”

 

Baroness turned on the television and tuned into a preset channel. The scene on the small screen was another room similar to the one Flint and the Baroness were in, with the same clinical feel and layout. There was a sound feed in the room, which played over the speakers of the television. A door slammed from outside the range of the closed-circuit camera’s view.

 

Flint observed halfheartedly as he saw two Cobra troopers dragging in the slumped figure of a Joe. He could make out that the trooper wore American BDU’s but the burly enemy soldiers, with their backs to the camera, obscured the face. They laid her on the bed, which was in full view of the room camera, and Flint could make out the anatomical features of one of his female teammates. For a second, he pinched his eyes shut, hoping beyond hope that it wasn’t Lady Jaye.

 

When Flint opened his eyes again, his tense moment was realized. He made out the familiar brown tresses and soft facial features of Lady Jaye. He couldn’t hold back as his anger flowed free. He strained again at the chains and barked at Baroness. “No! You’d better fucking let her go! Don’t you dare torture her! I’ll... fucking... kill... the lot of you!”

 

“I knew she would strike a chord in you, Flint,” Baroness cooed, putting her face between Flint and his view of Jaye on the television. Although he couldn’t see, he could hear Jaye screaming as the Cobra troops secured her to the other room’s hospital bed.

 

“But I can understand you’re feeling some grief over her capture. I’ve decided it would be in both of our best interests to postpone our talk about G. I. Joe and just focus on you. Why don’t you let me share some pleasures with you? It will make your stay here much more bearable...”

 

Baroness let the fabric of her robe fall loosely aside, showing Flint her voluptuous and busty body. “I chose this ensemble just for you, Flint. I’ve wanted to feel your flesh on mine for a long time.”

 

Flint wasn’t about to be swayed. “Take a picture, Baroness; it’ll last longer. I would never want to touch a slimy Cobra bitch like you, let alone screw you while I’m a prisoner and immobilized! You’re going to have to do all the work yourself, and I hope you get a nasty venereal disease from the experience!”

 

Baroness backhanded Flint, causing his head to roll away from her and leaving a red welt on his cheek. She added another whack on the thighs with the riding crop for good measure. “You still haven’t learned to rein in that defiant tongue of yours. I will be sure to put that to much better use.”

 

“In a pig’s eye you will, Baroness! I’m going to get free, and I’m going to shove that riding crop so far up your ass you’d be able to taste the boot leather when you brush your teeth!”

 

Baroness moved aside and sat on a chair where she could observe the television as well. Crossing her legs and resting the riding crop in her lap, she watched the events on the screen and Flint’s reactions equally.

 

***

 

Once Lady Jaye’s ankles were secured to the hospital bed, one of the Cobras roughly yanked down her BDU trousers and underwear, and Flint cringed when he saw them expose the flesh that he loved to touch and caress so much. She still struggled, but apparently it was a half- hearted thrashing, like she had already been broken.

 

She stopped moving when one of the guards pointed a loaded pistol between her eyes and the other guard finished stripping her bare. They then cuffed her wrists to the bed and looked her over from head to toe, laughing evilly and drooling in anticipation of Jaye’s “interrogation”.

 

“Damn it, Baroness! Even this is low for you! Your imbecile troops are going to gang rape her! Stop this and let her go back to the dungeon!”

 

Baroness watched the TV with a wry smile crossing her lips. “I let her go in exchange for what, Flint? What will you give me to guarantee her well-being?”

 

Flint clammed up quickly before he committed himself to turning over information to Baroness. “I can’t promise you anything.”

 

Baroness nodded her head in understanding. “I figured as much. Then I can’t stop what’s going to happen. I should like to think your loyalty to her is misplaced, though. Imagine the things one might discover when one can watch the world from outside.”

 

“Never!” Flint exploded in a loud voice. “Lady Jaye would never willingly...”

 

“We shall see,” Baroness asserted. “We shall see.”

 

***

 

Lady Jaye thrashed about, straining at the chains that held her to the bed, as the Cobra troopers muddled about the room, gathering papers with lists of questions and various other items outside the camera’s view. They were taking their time under orders, so that Baroness could watch Flint think through his quandary. “Dammit, put me back in the cell!” Lady Jaye yelled out. “I’m not going to talk this way! You might as well give up trying!”

 

“That’s my Jaye,” Flint said to himself, allowing the corners of his mouth to form a smile.

 

When the troopers were finished with their mundane gathering of materials, Lady Jaye craned her neck to see what they were doing, and gasped. They were still off-camera so Flint couldn’t see.

 

“Jesus, you guys look uglier without the uniforms and masks on!” Jaye quipped, trying to put a tough face on the situation. “Please spare the world and put your threads back on!”

 

Finally the troopers entered the view of the camera and Flint’s eyes grew wide. The Cobras had completely disrobed and were arranging a series of vibrators and dildos on a small rolling cart, along with drug syringes and all sorts of other paraphernalia. The troopers were stroking themselves and nursing erections, excited about being involved in the interrogation.

 

Baroness got back on her feet and kneeled by the bed where she could be face to face with Flint. “Do you still wish to make me an offer, to spare Lady Jaye the discomfort? My soldiers are obviously quite overzealous. I promised them they could use any means they wanted to get her to talk. It seems they have become teenagers again and let their dicks do the thinking for them.”

 

Baroness’ hand drifted down Flint’s chest, tracing the ripples and contours of his musculature. She kept watching Flint closely, as she gripped onto his cock, which had become slightly engorged at the sight of Jaye naked. But he was trying hard not to show arousal in front of his sworn enemy.

 

Baroness smiled as she stroked Flint’s rod and ran her fingernails around the base of it. “Hmm, nice reaction; you really get excited around the sight of Lady Jaye’s flesh. Maybe our dossier on you is incomplete. We need to add her as a target to get at you.”

 

Flint angrily spat in Baroness’ direction. “Damn it all, you get those boneheads to stop! What is it that you want?”

 

Baroness spoke slowly. “You know what I want. I don’t need to ask the questions, because you’ve asked them of our troops a hundred times yourself. You need to be willing to put forth the answers. I can stop what’s going on in that other room. You need to help me. I will also gladly reward you for any information you contribute.”

 

Flint turned to watch the TV again, and his face became a visage of horror when a trooper pulled out a large syringe and a long needle. The other trooper had located one of the largest penis-shaped dildos Flint had ever seen, but didn’t show it to Jaye. He simply laid it on the bed between her thighs and held her legs down.

 

“So, G. I. Joe, are you going to answer our questions? Or do we have to get rough with you?” the trooper with the syringe asked.

 

“Seeing you pricks naked is already torture enough, but I’m not giving up my buddies. Find some other patsy to try that with!” Jaye renewed her attempts to thrash around the bed. “You’ll never get away with this! Flint will...”

 

The Cobra with the syringe laid it down to one side, and as Jaye was arguing, he grabbed the back of her head and forced her to take his member into her mouth. He roughly held her head in place as she whimpered and made gagging sounds.

 

“NO!” Flint screamed. “Tell them to stop! What the fuck kind of cruelty is this, Baroness?”

 

Baroness pinched off Flint’s erection with a squeeze and kept up with her convincing. “You can stop their free reign over Lady Jaye. Just say the word and give me what I want willingly. Tell me truthfully about the Joes.”

 

Flint wrestled against Baroness’ grip and the chains, straining to burst forth so he could run to Lady Jaye’s aid. “NO! I won’t betray the United States or the Joes!”

 

The trooper with the dildo spread Jaye’s legs apart, fixing a set of stirrups to the bed to aid in keeping her immobile. He then spread a lubricant jelly on the dildo and began to rub it up and down her thighs, parting Jaye’s lips and rubbing it against her clitoris.

 

With the first trooper’s penis still in her mouth, Jaye struggled and whimpered some more, and then seemed to moan submissively. She reached out with her chained hand to stroke the shaft and balls of the trooper she was giving head to, and her legs settled into the stirrups as she felt the dildo pressed against her sensitive flesh.

 

Flint pinched his eyes shut; he couldn’t believe he was being made to watch them torture Lady Jaye like that. Baroness smiled as she kept her hand around Flint’s cock and stroked at it gently. “Have you reconsidered, Flint?” Using her free hand, Baroness prodded at Flint’s eyelids to make him keep his eyes open.

 

“No...” Flint said weakly, overcome with the thought of choosing between Lady Jaye and his loyalty to his country and Joe teammates. “No... Stop them, please.”

 

Lady Jaye continued to give the trooper head, more vigorously now. He moaned happily when she stroked at his balls instead of pinching him off and trying to bite his rod while it was in her mouth.

 

The trooper with the dildo finally slipped it between Jaye’s lips and thrust it inside her. He left it inside as Jaye let out a muffled screech at the feeling of being penetrated. Using one hand to manipulate the dildo inside her, the trooper began to kiss and lick the flesh of Jaye’s thighs and legs, moving all the way down to her feet and sucking on her toes one by one.

 

She began to moan from the sensations of being penetrated and ravaged in such an animalistic way. Jaye mumbled even as the dick in her mouth was being thrust inside, “Oh, yes, that feels good. Fuck me hard.” When the Cobra with the dildo was finished tasting Jaye’s soft flesh, he set the penis-shaped toy aside and climbed atop her to insert his own erection. Jaye’s moans increased when she felt a hot human dick between her moist lips and her hips began to buck, inviting deeper thrusts from her interrogator.

 

Flint couldn’t believe his ears. He pinched his eyes shut and refused to believe Jaye was taking any pleasure from what the Cobras were doing to her. He hoped beyond hope that it was all the worst nightmare of his life and that his bed at Wright-Patterson AFB with a peaceful Jaye sleeping beside him was the next sight he would see.

 

Baroness simply hung onto Flint’s erection and watched him. “Flint,” she cooed. “Look at her. She’s a slut. Something more than her survival instinct makes it acceptable to be sleeping with the enemy willingly, but not to escape a captor or to fulfill her mission. She may not do it in front of you, but she is the type to give even intimacy away to others in order to play along with her situation. How does that make you feel, Flint?”

 

Flint let out a snarl of pure rage and jealousy; from seeing what Jaye was willing to participate in and the thought running rampant through his mind that if what he was seeing was genuine, then how many other times did she fuck the enemy? How many missions when they were apart did she derive sexual pleasure from an unsuspecting civilian or an enemy agent?

 

Every muscle in Flint’s body strained at the bonds as he tried to burst free. “I won’t watch any more, Baroness! God damn it, I’ll fight my way out!”

 

Baroness reached for the closed circuit TV monitor and turned the unit off. “Okay, Flint,” she said. “Have it your way.” Flint screamed in anguish when the image of Jaye disappeared and his ability to hear the goings-on stopped. She then held a small capsule up to his face and popped it open, making Flint inhale the gaseous substance inside. It made him groggy and his vision blurred. “This is a fast-acting aerosol sedative. It’s only meant to keep you docile. I’m not going to ask you for any information this time because there’s something I want from you more.”

 

Baroness ran her long fingernails up and down Flint’s flesh as the sedative took effect. Once Flint’s muscles relaxed and his will to fight abated from the drugs suppressing his brain, Baroness brought a liquid to his lips. “You must be thirsty, Flint. Have a sip of cool water.” Flint parted his lips and drank the clear liquid Baroness offered.

 

The liquid Flint drank contained a strong drug similar to Viagra that had been dissolved into it. The drug coursed through Flint’s bloodstream as it was absorbed, and dilated the blood vessels around his genitals, causing him to become stiffly erect. Baroness stroked Flint’s resurgent erection with her fingers and smiled. “Now, that’s the way I like you.”

 

Baroness dropped the silken robe from her shoulders and quickly removed the undergarments she had on, climbing up to the hospital bed with a small step stool. She straddled Flint’s face, pressing her vagina lips up against Flint’s nose and mouth. Taking his erection in both hands, she slipped her mouth over it and began to taste Flint’s man-meat. She licked at the head for a moment before hungrily surrounding his cock with her mouth.

 

Despite the sedation, Flint’s senses were alive and well. He felt the pressure of Baroness’ weight on his body, and could sense her musky female scent strong in his nose. He could sense a slight wetness on his upper lip where Baroness’ juices had begun to leak out from her lips onto his face.

 

Baroness raised her head from Flint’s cock to suck in a breath, and she altered her voice slightly to mimic a Gaelic lilt. “That feels good, doesn’t it lover?” she asked Flint. “Show me how much you love me.”

 

Flint’s mind had been assaulted by such violently contradictory thoughts he didn’t know what to believe any more. When he heard what sounded vaguely like Jaye’s voice, he thought the nightmare was over. He smelled the female scent pressed against him and thought he was deep in a dalliance with his lover. His tongue reflexively stretched out to touch the lips before him. He inhaled to bask in what he thought was Jaye’s sex again.

 

Baroness moaned with pleasure when Flint’s warm tongue brushed against her clitoris and she gently rocked her hips to get the most sensation from his lip service. She returned to gobbling his erection in her mouth, as his cock vibrated and quivered.

 

Baroness let out a small whimper of satisfaction when Flint’s tongue work got her aroused to the point where she wanted him deep inside her. She lifted her body off of Flint’s, and positioned herself over his erection.

 

She turned the closed circuit TV back on, where the sounds of the two Cobras having sex with Lady Jaye filled her interrogation room again. Baroness balanced herself by resting her hands on Flint’s heaving chest as she lowered her wet vagina eagerly onto his hard prick. She closed her eyes and bit her lip, holding back a whimper as Flint’s erection spread her lips apart and filled her up inside.

 

Baroness bucked her hips hard, grinding her pelvis against Flint’s, moaning with passion as she took him inside of her all the way. She felt the slapping together of flesh while enjoying the electric sensations from the penetration of Flint’s erect cock. Closing her eyes, she rocked back and forth, enjoying Flint inside her as much as she could. Unconsciously, she began to call out, “Oh yes! That’s it, Flint! Fuck me hard, you Joe stud!”

 

After about forty minutes of pleasuring herself on Flint’s cock, where she climaxed several times, she noticed Flint beginning to stir and coming out of his drugged stupor. She knew that the faster movement of blood through his body due to the Viagra-like sexual stimulant would wear the aerosol sedative off more quickly than normal. She climbed off his body and gently cleaned up her fluids with a wet towel, wiping herself down afterwards. It was time for the second phase of convincing Flint to talk.

 

***

 

Flint regained his consciousness slowly as the drugs that Baroness administered lost their potency. He could hear the closed circuit TV still going, and the images hadn’t changed. The two Cobra interrogators had swapped positions and were still having their way with Lady Jaye, although the tension of the scene had changed. Jaye seemed to be willingly accepting them, even encouraging them to penetrate her more. When she could use her mouth, her only words were to urge the men on.

 

Disappointment and despair were only two of the emotions Flint began to feel as he remembered in his mind’s eye the events of the past hours. He was confused at the images he saw, compared to what he knew about Jaye – compared to the love and tenderness they shared and the notion that she had always been loyal to him during their relationship.

 

He was aware that he was still naked, and that his limbs were still restrained. As he breathed in deeply to try and calm his thoughts, he could smell the scent of sex in the air. As his eyes shifted about the room, he spotted the corner of a towel dropped on the floor, and Baroness’ silken robe hung neatly on a peg. He heard the sounds of running water, and after a moment, the sound of a door opening and closing.

 

Baroness walked back into the room, still in the nude, and looked Flint over as he strained to regain his composure. She drew her fingernails along his cheek and gently kissed him while he struggled against his chains. “Hello, Flint. I see you’re up and around again. Thank you for being my stallion earlier. I really enjoyed my ride.” She dangled her breasts in front of Flint’s face as she reached for his flaccid cock and smiled lustfully. Her long fingers wrapped around it once more to savor the feel of his hot flesh in her hand.

 

Although the drugs had obfuscated Flint’s short-term memory, he was able to put two and two together. “Whatever I did with you, you aristocratic Cobra bitch, I sure as hell didn’t enjoy it!”

 

“I see your attitude has returned,” Baroness said in a low voice. “I can’t talk with you when you harbor such hostility. Perhaps you require more convincing before I resort to truth serums and other means of obtaining the facts that I desire.” She pulled the hand that held Flint’s penis back and delivered a sharp backhanded slap to Flint’s face, leaving a fresh welt behind. Without further words, she walked out of the room, presumably to issue new orders to her troops.

 

***

 

The Cobra interrogators were still getting themselves off with Lady Jaye when all of a sudden they perked up and looked to the door, as if hearing something familiar in the hallway. Both of them hastily withdrew their members and got back into their uniforms as Lady Jaye turned her head to the side and coughed slightly, spitting to clear her mouth.

 

“Where are you going?” she asked pathetically, almost in a begging tone. “You can’t leave me now! I need your manly cocks inside of me! I haven’t had such large and meaty dicks in so long! Why did you stop fucking me? It felt so good! I want you to make me cum over and over!”

 

“Shut up!” one of the interrogators ordered, threatening to whack Jaye in the face with a balled up fist. “Don’t let the Baroness know what we were doing, or else you won’t live through the interrogation!”

 

Meekly, Jaye clammed up, as the Baroness entered the room. She looked the Cobra interrogators over and whispered some instructions to them. They checked the chains on Jaye’s wrists and ankles to make sure they were still secure, and then all three exited the room.

 

Flint wondered if the speaker pickups worked both ways. He spoke in the direction of the CCTV monitor. “Lady Jaye, it’s Flint. I can hear you in my interrogation room. Can you hear me? Please say something if you can hear me?” Flint’s voice became desperate as he pleaded for Jaye to respond.

 

A clang from off-camera announced the re-entry of the Cobra interrogators. They had a second prisoner in tow, stripped naked and chained. Had Flint been able to sit upright, his jaw would most certainly have hit the floor. The Cobras had brought Crypto in, most likely from another interrogation room, and paraded him before Jaye. She began to smack her lips hungrily.

 

“Since you’re being so accommodating, prisoner,” the lead interrogator said with a wry smile. “You may be serviced by your teammate here. He has been rather tight-lipped, and our other methods of interrogation haven’t been working. Possibly you can convince him to save himself the pain of further torture and the rewards he can get for being cooperative.”

 

“Put him on the bed, my Cobra studs, and I’ll work on him,” Jaye agreed with a nod, and the second interrogator stepped over to her side to unlock the restraining chains.

 

Flint saw what was going on, and he hoped Jaye and Crypto were going to make a break for it. His hopes were dashed, though, when as soon as she was released from her bonds, she walked over to Crypto and laid a long French kiss on his lips and grabbed between his legs. Crypto was obviously shocked; one could tell in his eyes that Jaye’s behavior was the last thing he expected. But he was also aroused, as his member firmed up with her touch.

 

“Ooh, Crypto, you’re one big boy,” Jaye cooed while stroking him, as the Cobra interrogators leveled pistols at their heads.

 

“Break it up you two, you’ll have all the time you want together after you’re secured.” Each guard took a Joe’s chains and hauled them apart at gunpoint. The one guarding Crypto led him to the bed and ordered him to mount up. Once he was lying flat on his back, the chains were secured.

 

Lady Jaye climbed atop Crypto, pressing her ample chest against his, and took on a look of surprise when her chains were re-secured to the bed. “How do you expect me to get my jollies if I can’t touch him? Come on, guys, you have to throw us a bone here.”

 

The interrogator stood where Jaye could see him and pointed towards Crypto’s pelvis. “Your bone is right there for the taking. You seemed to like him an awful lot. You’ll make do.”

 

Jaye wiggled her pelvis around until she felt the tip of Crypto’s hard-on gently parting her wet lips. She looked directly into Crypto’s eyes when he tried to stutter out a warning.

 

“Why are you doing this?” Crypto asked in a hushed whisper. “What about Flint?”

 

“I’ve always wanted to get laid by you ever since we met at Headquarters,” Jaye replied lustfully. “And Flint’s not here. He can’t control me. I’m sick of his jealous streak and he never lets me have any fun of my own.”

 

“But...” Crypto whispered. “He is here. He was captured too.”

 

“To hell with him then,” Jaye responded flatly. “You’re my stud for tonight. And I will have you. I don’t even care that we’re fucking in the middle of an enemy prison, with an audience. So get ready to have your world rocked.”

 

Flint’s mind was reeling. He knew that Baroness had returned, but she hadn’t yet spoken to him again, simply letting him watch the torturous television program being acted out live elsewhere in the dungeon. In the back of his mind, there always lingered the thought that it all was a fabrication, but what he saw looked too real to discount. He saw Lady Jaye in the monitor; he knew the other Joe prisoner was Crypto. His sensibilities conflicted with his senses as the events transpired.

 

Jaye wiggled some more once she found the tip of Crypto’s manhood, and she soon sighed with pleasure as her muscles accepted the erect cock inside of her. “Come on, stud,” she said to Crypto, pressing her body as close to his as she could while keeping him inside her. “You’re going to fuck me and like it. I know how bad you’ve wanted to wet your wick in me. It’s just as bad as how I’ve wanted you spreading me wide open.”

 

Jaye closed her eyes and bit down on her lip to stifle a loud moan as she ground her hips against Crypto’s erection, taking him all the way inside. Crypto was still trying to pinch his eyes shut and not think about what was happening. But Jaye’s moans and dirty talk eventually got him to open his eyes and pay attention.

 

“Oh, yes, Crypto, that’s right! I love the way your big cock fills me up and spreads me open! Come on, you stud! Fuck me! Bury every inch of that meat inside me!” Jaye ground her hips up against Crypto, and he began to moan with pleasure, although his face still had a look of confusion on it.

 

Crypto felt the added weight on his body when one of the Cobra interrogators climbed up on the hospital bed and entered Jaye from behind without warning. Lady Jaye let out a mild shriek of surprise and then looked down at Crypto and smiled at the sensation of having penetration both ways. “Mmm, yeah, that feels the best, to have two manly cocks at once...” Jaye planted a French kiss on Crypto’s mouth and asked, “So are you enjoying it more now?”

 

Crypto seemed to have the confused look bleed right off his face as he nodded his head to Jaye. “You feel so good, Jaye. I hope they put us in a cell together so we can keep it up...”

 

“That depends on you, Crypto,” Jaye remarked. “Maybe if we tell them something, they’ll let us have each other.” Lady Jaye shuddered and moaned deeply with pleasure as a well-timed thrust filled both of her orifices up and she bore down to clamp her muscles tightly so that the men’s cocks couldn’t slip out by accident. “Oh, god this is so hot, you boys are going to make me cum all over again...”

 

Not wanting to be left out, the other interrogator slid a step stool to the head end of the hospital bed and stepped up onto it. The stool brought his pelvis to the level of Jaye’s head, where he presented his erection for lip service.

 

Jaye looked the trooper’s penis over and quipped, “It took you long enough to want in on the action. I was wondering if I would ever get to feel all three of your manly cocks inside me at once.”

 

The soldier grabbed onto a few locks of Jaye’s hair and the back of her neck to pull her into position. Jaye teasingly licked at the tip first, still moaning with pleasure at the sensations of being in the middle of a sex sandwich. Her gentle teasing of the head sent shudders through the interrogator, and he yanked hard to pull her mouth down over the length of his shaft. Jaye gulped a moment and then began to massage the penis with her tongue, sliding up and down the shaft with tightly pursed-together lips.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, in the other interrogation room, Baroness studied Flint’s horrified expressions. “You look like you could really use a friend right now, Flint,” she said softly. “Are you sure there’s nothing you can tell me to help end this situation? Although by the looks of things, your girlfriend is really enjoying herself in there. Maybe you can say something that will stop the exploiting of that young Navy Lieutenant. He doesn’t need to be involved in Lady Jaye’s debauchery, right?”

 

Flint shook his head no. “There’s nothing I can say. I will not betray my country.”

 

Baroness let the fabric of her robe drop to the floor a second time, exposing her nude body to Flint. She climbed up onto the bed again and straddled Flint’s chest, giving him a generous view of her labia and clitoris.

 

“You must be high on some local weed, Baroness,” Flint taunted angrily. “You know I still will never have sex with you willingly. You’ll have to gas me again with that damn knockout stuff.”

 

Baroness sat back on Flint’s chest and spread herself open for him. “No, Flint, I had my fill of you today. I’m just going to show you what you’re missing with all of your uncooperativeness.”

 

She let out a soft moan when she splayed the lips of her labia wide and began to rub her clit hard with her forefinger. Baroness used her free hand to run fingernails up and down Flint’s chest as he thrashed about, trying to dislodge her from her place on top of him.

 

Flint’s movements only seemed to excite Baroness more as his chest hairs tickled the insides of her thighs where they rubbed against each other. “Oh, Flint, baby, that threat to shove my riding crop up my ass has gotten me more turned on than I thought. Maybe I’ll test that theory of what something shoved up my ass tastes like tomorrow, on something of yours!”

 

Closing her eyes, Baroness kept rubbing harder at her clit with the forefinger, slipping others in between her lips and into her vagina. Her hips began to rock as she pleasured herself, and the musky scent of her excitement filled Flint’s nostrils again. To express her interest in having Flint penetrate her anally, she rubbed his flaccid cock in between her cheeks while she masturbated atop him. “Oh, yes, Flint, I’m going to find out more about your ass theory, you tough guy.”

 

Flint was trying his hardest to ignore Baroness’ teasing while keeping an eye on the CCTV screen. He never imagined that Jaye would ever willingly fuck three men at once in her life... The whole thing was opening his eyes in a way, especially with the things she said when she thought he couldn’t hear...

 

Eventually, Baroness screamed at the top of her lungs when she brought herself to orgasm. She did it in much the same volume as the cobra troopers and Lady Jaye did when they came in the other room. Crypto choked back a loud gulp and moaned softly as he was consumed as well and shot his wad into Jaye’s moist vagina.

 

Baroness climbed off Flint’s chest, and dabbed her thighs and body dry of sweat and sex juices before replacing her robe. She kissed his forehead and whispered, “Until tomorrow, then.” She left Flint alone in the interrogation room as she called for the guards to return him to his prison cell. “Guards! I am finished with this one. Hose him down and put him back in the dungeon level. Come on, you fools! Be quick about it!”

 

***

 

As guards hurried to attend to Flint’s removal back to the cell blocks, Baroness walked into the other interrogation room, after seeing to it Flint’s CCTV was turned off and out of his reach. She also made sure the lead guard shocked Flint unconscious with the stun-stick before removing the chains.

 

By the time Baroness arrived down the hall, the two Cobra interrogators had unchained Lady Jaye and Crypto, and the whole quartet was giving themselves quick wet-towel cleanups. After finishing that, the Cobras put their cobalt blue uniforms back on, while Jaye and Crypto reached for a drawer containing sets of their Crimson Guard uniforms inside.

 

Baroness took a seat as the troopers dressed and pointed in Lady Jaye and Crypto’s direction. “You shouldn’t go walking around the building with those still on.”

 

Crypto spoke up on reply, reaching up to itch at his neck for a moment. “It’s so easy to forget with this micro-thin flesh-feel material.” He peeled off a thin layer of a composite rubbery material to reveal that he was, in fact, a Crimson Guard. “I trust the whole scene was believable, Lieutenant Deming?”

 

Lady Jaye peeled off her own mask to reveal her true identity as the female Siegie in charge of prisoner interrogations, and blew her counterpart a kiss. “It sure was, Fred 297. I felt everything and it was good!”

 

The Baroness nodded her head at the group. “Yes, you all performed splendidly. Now we have to see what Flint does in the morning. You are all dismissed from any other duties for the night, with my compliments.”

 

Lieutenant Deming bowed slightly to the Baroness and motioned to all of the men. “Thank you, Lady Baroness. I think after some chow and time to recuperate, these three studs might be up for a private encore performance over at the barracks, don’t you?”

 

The Baroness winked at the group, understanding what the lieutenant had in mind. “Then consider it an order. You need to keep practicing your characters in case I need you again. Enjoy your night off duty.”


	24. Penetration and Subterfuge

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Nineteen

Penetration and Subterfuge

 

 ** _Maskirovka_** : (Russian, n.) _The concept in Soviet Army tactical thinking in which deceptive warfare is used to obfuscate an enemy’s ability to gather accurate intelligence about friendly movements, plans or axes of attack. From the standpoint of Soviet Army commanders, it involves anything from individual maneuver units laying smoke, to diversion attacks by economy of force elements, all the way up to SPETZNAZ brigade campaigns at the Strategic Direction, Army Front or Group of Soviet Forces level._

 

***

 

Queen Alia International Airport

Amman, Jordan

27 July, 2002

2300 hours, local time

 

Flanked by small mobile lighting trailers, an old DC-9-30 narrow-body airliner of 1970’s vintage sat by itself near an unused government hangar, painted in a dull white finish. Parts of the McDonnell-Douglas aircraft still remained a flat metallic color where paint had never been applied at all and the thin aluminum outer skin was exposed to the elements. The small transport jet bore no identifying markings, other than huge red crescents on the tail, wingtips and nose section, and fading black Saudi Arabian registry marks on the plane’s rear-mounted engine nacelles.

 

A small platoon of ground personnel moved about the plane, cleaning and stocking the DC-9-30 for its return trip to Saddam International Airport. The second-hand airliner had been donated by a wealthy Saudi sultan to the Order of the Red Crescent when the crisis in Iraq began, for the purpose of providing medical relief supplies and emergency air ambulance services to the Iraqi people.

 

Despite American and Allied over-flight restrictions and BARCAP (Barrier Combat Air Patrol) fighter patrols enforcing the “No-Fly” zones which ended up in many a bloody skirmish with Cobra’s “fast-mover” aerial sweep fighters, the DC-9-30 still soldiered on to carry forward its humanitarian mission.

 

While a maintenance and cleaning crew worked the main passenger cabin, four people clad in simple white overalls that bore the faded green logo of a Jordanian cargo handling agency rolled up to the plane’s forward cargo hatch with a small train of metal containers full of medical and humanitarian aid supplies earmarked for delivery to Baghdad.

 

Three of the cargo loaders were men, and one was a female. They all had slightly tanned skin, and one man had locally-made burlap bandages completely covering his face. Without paying any mind to the pair of Jordanian private security men that occasionally walked around the plane, or the Libyan mercenary pilots that flew the airliner in and out of the country, the loaders began to raise the small, conformal containers into the cargo bay, using an internal conveyor to position the specially shaped metal boxes so that they fit correctly on board.

 

Security at the airport was fairly lax, considering the threats of war that had placed many of Jordan’s neighbors on full military alert. Because of a contact in the Jordanian Defense Ministry that had been an acquaintance of General Tomahawk’s from his West Point days, Snake-Eyes’ ninja team had penetrated the airport without so much as a second glance by the airport’s government-provided security force. The largely para-military guard force had all conveniently been assigned to escort Tomahawk’s classmate, ostensibly a Corps Commander and Major General in the Royal Jordanian Army, on a useless tour of the airport’s passenger facilities and control tower.

 

The closest thing to a potential breach of their cover had been when a foreman in the cargo hangar had challenged their assignment to load the Red Crescent DC-9. Thinking that the foreman could be an Iraqi Secret Intelligence Service agent, the Joes stuck with their cover story, insisting that Snake-Eyes was injured in an aircraft fire while employed at another airport and was hired at the cargo agency to manage the team while he healed from his wounds. Quick-Kick and Kamakura spoke to the foreman in broken English and Arabic, adding to the impression that they were expatriate workers, hence their foreign facial features. The story had been a success when the foreman told them in broken English to be careful with the tow tractor and handed Snake-Eyes the keys.

 

The four Joes took their time loading the plane’s cargo bay, making sure that the last container aboard was an empty one that they had picked up from a separate hangar. The empty container had been where they stashed high-capacity oxygen tanks and Draeger Mark VII lightweight SEAL re-breather systems, plus their ninja short swords and a supply of shuriken, throwing daggers and commando uniforms. The oxygen and re-breathers were important when the cargo bay was de-pressurized and the Joes couldn’t ride to Baghdad in the airliner’s passenger seats one deck above.

 

When the last container was loaded, they parked the ground tug and cargo trailers safely away from the aircraft, and then snuck back under the fuselage in order to climb into the cargo bay and shut the door. No one even questioned where they had gone when the Libyan pilots fired up the engines and took off for the two and a half hour flight to Baghdad.

 

***

 

Southeastern Turkey, near the Iraqi Border

Approximately 20 miles northwest of Mosul, Iraq

28 July, 2002

0030 hours, local time

 

The convoy of Turkish petroleum tankers had driven hard for at least three hours since stopping off in the city of Diyarbakir to refuel and take on additional vehicles into their number. The roadway between the Turkish border city and the army’s border control station was awash with swirls of dust, at times barely paved as it meandered across the highlands and valleys between eastern Turkey and the flatter lowland of the Iraqi district of Ninawa, where Mosul was the governmental capital and headquarters of a combined Cobra and Iraqi Army infantry corps command.

 

Well-worn brakes on the articulated and straight rigs squealed in the night as the empty tankers crossed from the Turkish side of the border into the Iraqi side, where the lightly-manned border post had its usual squad of lazy Iraqi Army conscript soldiers.

 

The lead driver of the convoy and his mate were representatives of the petrol company that smuggled crude oil out of Iraq to refine and sell as Turkish fuel. Because of the United Nations trade sanctions, the Iraqi crude oil and fuel had to be moved on the black market through Turkey because the Allies were once more stopping the flow of crude from al-Basra by tanker, using a naval blockade and stop-and-search tactics, and the Syrians had bowed to international pressure to cut the Damascus pipeline and sever the ability to move Iraqi oil into the Mediterranean to develop trade revenues. The UN’s Oil for Food program only yielded minimal results, since the trade-off didn’t give the government the hard currency it really needed to operate.

 

The petrol company reps knew the drill for the convoy. When the Iraqi troops halted the long string of trucks, the men were ready to pass a briefcase full of Turkish dinari – about $2,000 worth in American funds, and possibly a year’s worth of military pay for the border guard detachment – to buy their passage. The border troops accepted their commission, and the serpentine convoy started up again.

 

The border security was so lax on the Iraqi side, that sometimes the loyal government troops were replaced by bands of murderous Kurd fighters conducting hit and run raids in their own fight for independence. The Turkish petrol runners didn’t care who they paid off, so long as they could move the fuel. The Kurds gladly took the money and spent it on food, clothes and ammo for their embattled clans, who were giving and taking ground daily in a disorganized, see-saw guerilla battle with the government forces.

 

About ten vehicles back from the convoy leader, a large, three-axle, non-articulated tanker with a green painted cab that was re-built from an old 1965 Mack truck bounced and rolled forward under the power of its retrofitted diesel engine. Safely concealed inside the empty steel bulk tank, Storm Shadow and his seven ninja commandos endured the uncomfortable quarters in silence, talking in whispers among themselves only when necessary.

 

Because the tanker had a fuel dump hatch built into the bottom of the round storage tank, the Joe ninjas were able to crack it open for some degree of ventilation as the ethnic Kurd (and CIA-paid operative) behind the wheel sped the vehicle along the poorly maintained road as fast as he dared.

 

All the commandos were outfitted in grey and black urban camouflage fighting gi, which reversed to fully black for stealthy ninja operations. Storm Shadow winced as he felt the whole truck vibrate under him after hitting a rough spot in the road. When it seemed to settle, he slipped the camouflaged facemask off his head, revealing the sharp Japanese features that still had signs of youth, and his short-cropped, jet-black hair.

 

Storm Shadow’s dark eyes scanned the faces of the other ninja commandos. Because of the facemasks, he could only read the emotions of each Joe through the pairs of eyes that stared back at him. Budo, Bushido, Dojo, T’Gin-Zu, T’jbang, Nunchuk and Banzai’s expressions were neutral and intense. They were ready for anything.

 

To keep their sanity, the ninja had turned on a small battery-powered lamp that bathed the inside of the tank with a dull yellow light. Some of them occupied themselves by checking and re-checking their razor-sharp edged weapons and throwing implements, while Nunchuk studied the GPS display on his TDC unit, following their position.

 

“How are we doing?” Storm Shadow asked Nunchuk, placing a hand on the latter’s shoulder.

 

“We’re about to reach Mosul’s bypass highway,” Nunchuk whispered. “Let’s hope the security troops don’t search the convoy better there than they did at the border.”

 

“Just keep watching our position,” Storm Shadow replied. “If we have to bail and find another way to Baghdad, at least we’re inside the country and can move with impunity.”

 

The ride continued for another half hour, and then the tanker screeched to a rapid halt, causing the seated ninja to scramble to keep their balance and maintain noise discipline. They were careful not to bang around the inside of the tank in case someone outside could hear the commotion and come snooping.

 

“Storm Shadow,” Nunchuk said under his breath as Dojo and Bushido secured the drain hatch momentarily. “Something’s wrong here.”

 

“What is it?” Storm Shadow asked, shuffling over to look at Nunchuk’s TDC.

 

“Well, in a nutshell, we’re stopped and way off course,” Nunchuk replied. He pointed to the TDC’s global positioning display and then pulled out a thin silk escape map with their intended route to Baghdad marked in red ink, which had been prepared by their CIA driver.

 

“We should’ve taken the Mosul bypass road. And a half hour after the check point, we should be someplace southeast of the city, on this main highway.” Nunchuk pointed to a trace on the escape map that coincided with his navigation reckoning. Then he pointed to an oil terminal that sat alongside a river far to the east of Mosul. “Here is where we have been since the convoy halted. I thought at first we were getting a false triangulation as the navigation satellites got re-indexed by the GPS software, but the position fix has been steady. I think that we were sidetracked at the check point, or someone changed the orders for the convoy at the last minute. We may have to strike out on our own if we’re going to find adequate transport to Baghdad and try to get back onto our time schedule.”

 

“Let’s hang for fifteen minutes and see what’s going on,” Storm Shadow suggested. “This may be a partial loading site for the oil convoy, a ruse to avoid being spotted by American KH-12 satellites during a recon pass. These contract drivers have their identities to protect, mind you.” He turned to the rest of his commando team, who were all intensely listening to the discussion, even though Nunchuk and Storm Shadow were speaking in whispers. “Just sit tight for now, everyone.”

 

Budo sat back uneasily and leaned against the thin steel wall of the tanker. He motioned for Storm Shadow’s attention and whispered, “I’m not sure about all this, Tommy. We’ve been cooped up too long. And if we do get discovered in here, it’ll be a massacre. The locals will be enjoying ‘Ninjas Fricassee’. Can I get outside and snoop around for a bit?”

 

Storm Shadow considered the concern on Budo’s face, and then nodded. “We need our own information to plan our next movement, Kyle. You and Banzai slip out under the truck and scout around a bit. Switch to your black gi and be invisible.”

 

“You got it, boss,” Budo whispered, shrugging off his combat uniform and reversing it so the black layer showed out. Banzai did the same, and then the two ninja slipped down through the tanker’s discharge hatch and silently moved out into the blackness beyond.

 

Budo dropped lithely onto the ground beneath the tanker truck and rolled silently against a pair of the truck’s road wheels to survey his surroundings. He was lying on a roughly-paved asphalt road, and the noises of idling trucks surrounded him. He felt a gentle tug at one of his tabi socks, the traditional ninja combat footwear, and knew that Banzai was in position to cover him.

 

Listening carefully and hearing no footfalls within earshot, Budo tucked himself into a ball and rolled out from under the truck. Banzai followed him less than a heartbeat later. Staying low, the two ninja scanned the area for more details.

 

The Joe ninja commandos and their transportation were situated inside a large fuel loading facility, where long lines of trucks could normally be accommodated. Only four short ranks of Turkish trucks, the entire convoy that had rolled in from Diyarbakir, were present among the spaghetti patterns of feed pipes and discharge hoses. Some of the contract drivers milled around a lighted shack, smoking their local Turkish or Iraqi cigarettes, as they talked excitedly to the Iraqi oil workers assigned to the facility.

 

Inevitably, Budo thought, there would have to be some security nearby, so he led Banzai a short distance from their truck and they climbed a ladder up to the top of a larger articulated tanker. Pressing their bodies close to the deck that ran the length of the tank trailer, Budo gasped at what he saw.

 

Roughly a regiment’s worth of Chinese-built Type 90 tanks were parked in neat lines under a large camouflage net in a distant, unused section of the fueling area. The Type 90 was a copy of the Soviet T-72M1 main battle tank that incorporated a very powerful 125mm main gun and Western fire control systems, in order to match American M-1A1’s in lethality. At least thirty Soviet T-72M’s were also on hand in the vehicle park, but set off to a remote line where they were likely stored in between training maneuvers.

 

The top-of-the-line armored behemoths were accompanied by ranks of older Cobra HISS (version I and III) tanks, more recent HISS IV and HISS IV ‘C&C’ armored fighting and command vehicles, Russian BMP-1 (or Chinese Type 86, which are quite similar) infantry carriers, BRM-1 artillery command vehicles and their articulated Maggot self-propelled howitzers, and a wide assortment of wheeled equipment. Enemy troops, both Cobra Vipers and Iraqi Republican Guard regulars, marched back and forth in constant patrols, protecting the cache of heavy firepower.

 

“What is it?” Banzai asked softly. “Where are we?”

 

“We’re in a fuel dump that’s selling black market oil to the Turks for hard currency,” Budo whispered back. “But it also just happens to be a divisional vehicle holding point for a huge mass of Cobra and Iraqi heavy hitters. The garrison is bound to come sniffing around the trucks sooner rather than later.”

 

“Damn,” Banzai whispered. “Let’s call the boss.”

 

***

 

Iraqi Ministry of Petroleum Production

Crude Oil Processing Station Number 5

Mosul, Iraq

0200 hours, local time

 

Storm Shadow was shaking his head and studying the silk escape map of northern Iraq when his TDC chirped softly. He flipped open the plastic cover and saw that he was receiving a call from Budo’s TDC. The ninja commander waved his hand to signal the other Joes to be silent.

 

“Go ahead, Budo,” Storm Shadow whispered into his TDC. “What’s your SITREP?”

 

“Banzai and I have a high point a couple trucks away from you,” Budo reported. “And things don’t look too swell for the good guys. There’s a divisional vehicle holding point for heavy armor here. Lots of tanks and other armored vehicles are parked under camouflage. And the place is swarming with security. This is one Dodge City we DO NOT want to stick around in.”

 

“Roger that,” Storm Shadow replied, motioning for the other commandos to gather their gear and bail out of the tanker. “Can you put eyes on a possible exit route?”

 

“Not sure, boss,” Budo whispered. “But I can surely tell you that being out here is preferable to being inside that tanker with no room to fight. We’ll watch your backs as you slip outside.”

 

“Okay,” Storm Shadow said, glancing at his team while Dojo became the first to slip down through the discharge hatch. “We’re coming out now.”

 

***

 

A large military truck rolled down the few ranks of tanker trucks waiting to be loaded with crude oil for the trip back to Diyarbakir, finally stopping almost abreast of the one from which Storm Shadow and his team were about to emerge. Two squads of Alley-Vipers were disgorged from the truck and formed into single-file lines as the Cobra troops locked and loaded their sub-machineguns and awaited their commander.

 

“Dojo, freeze and make like a hole in the ground,” Banzai hissed into his TDC through a tiny earpiece and boom mic that he wore under his headgear. Budo twisted from his position where he was watching out in another direction, palming a fistful of thin, balanced ninja throwing darts that had been coated with fast-acting snake venom.

 

“Boss, about twenty Alley-Vipers just dismounted next to your truck,” Budo added on the team frequency through his TDC and microphone. “Stand fast until they disperse. It looks like they’re doing the sweep we were expecting.”

 

A low-ranking Cobra Officer gestured to the parked columns of tanker trucks and barked out a few words that were unintelligible to Budo and Banzai from their position. When the enemy officer was done speaking, the Alley-Vipers all shouted “COBRA!” and fanned out in four-man fire teams.

 

Budo keyed his TDC to transmit once more, watching the officer lazily walking around the cab of his unit’s truck to light a cigarette next to the driver’s door. “Boss, this is Budo. You’re clear to move. I think we should try the truck as our way out. You have an officer and Alley-Viper on the driver’s side.”

 

Storm Shadow nodded at his teammates and then slipped under the tanker to join Dojo. Nunchuk and Bushido dropped out of the tank trailer as soon as the first pair slithered across the stretch of open asphalt between the Cobra troop truck and their hiding place.

 

T’jbang and T’Gin-Zu quietly slipped out of the tank trailer through the upper loading hatch, and low-crawled along the top spine of the vehicle until they reached the service access ladder. The steel-rung work ladder was mounted between the tractor cab and the tank trailer and gave the two ninja direct access to the front of the Cobra transport truck.

 

Storm Shadow emerged from under the truck, barely looking like a slow-moving wraith among the shadows. He quietly pulled a wakizashi short sword from its sheath and covered the shiny steel blade with his body so the light from the facility’s large floodlights wouldn’t reflect from it.

 

The Cobra officer smoked silently, leaning against the driver’s side door of the truck, where the vehicle’s driver sat silently, listening to the security fire teams’ routine reports on their walkie-talkie network. Without making a sound, Storm Shadow rose from the ground, the whites of his eyes hanging in the darkness like those of a demon.

 

The officer saw a flash of movement behind him with the truck’s side mirror, but his mind didn’t register any potential of danger until Storm Shadow’s wakizashi appeared in front of his throat. Without a word, the Joe ninja slit the officer’s throat and dragged him to the ground.

 

The Alley-Viper behind the wheel of the truck was startled when he heard the soft swish of Storm Shadow’s wakizashi cut through the still air. He saw the officer go down, wrapped by arms sheathed in black as dark as the night. But he couldn’t raise any sort of warning, because Dojo popped his face up on the truck’s passenger side, and flicked a shuriken across the cab.

 

The black steel ninja throwing star struck the Viper in the base of his neck, digging deeply into his flesh under the jaw and slicing neatly through the jugular vein. As the soldier clutched at his throat, trying in vain to draw breath into his rapidly-filling lungs, Storm Shadow opened the truck door and hauled him to the ground, holding his struggling and convulsing form down under the pressure of the ninja’s leather-soled tabi sock. The driver died quickly and quietly.

 

“Boss, you’ve got trouble coming,” Budo said from his observation post. “Two fire teams are on their way back already, one from the north and the other from the south. You boys had best get invisible really fast.”

 

Storm Shadow shook his head in silence. The timing sucked totally, since none of the ninja had a chance to fan out into ambush positions. Making the officer and driver’s bodies disappear would also cause the troops to be alarmed and start a detailed search. The only way out was to fight. “Everyone break up and ambush the soldiers quietly,” Sergeant First Class Arashikage ordered. “Call an all clear when they’ve been silenced.”

 

All of the ninja blended into the darkness since their combat gi had been turned black side out. Nunchuk and Bushido inched their way north, while T’jbang and T’Gin-Zu worked their way south, keeping in the shadows of the tanker trucks. When they had moved to a decent fighting distance from the troop truck, the ninja selected good hiding places to work from.

 

***

 

The Alley-Viper fire team moving from the north rounded the last truck in the line and could see very little detail or movement around their squad truck. They expected their section leader to still be outside the vehicle waiting for them to report back. “Six, this is Team Two. How do you copy, over?” asked the NCO team leader over the walkie-talkie.

 

There was no response, except for static and the occasional bullshitting from other team leaders.

 

“Six, this is Team Two,” the NCO radioed once more. “We’ve completed the security sweep. There’s nothing to report.” Shaking his head questioningly, the NCO made a gesture to his men, who locked and loaded their MP-5A sub-machineguns and spread out into a single-file line. Their heaviest firepower was in the hands of their trail man, who carried a Chinese Type 88, 7.62mm bullpup assault rifle.

 

“What’choo guys wanna bet that Six is jerking off in the back of the truck?” one of the more colorful Alley-Viper NCOs said over their squad channel.

 

“Shut up, Team Five,” the Team Two leader hissed. “Something’s not right.” The Team Two leader was also the security officer’s right hand man, an experienced Cobra non-com and ex-Rhodesian SAS mercenary who fought in several African bush skirmishes before joining the Alley-Vipers. He turned to face his troops and pointed to his eyes, a signal for “Stay alert”.

 

The quartet of Cobra urban fighting men inched towards their troop truck carefully. As they passed Nunchuk and Bushido’s position, the ninja stayed in the shadows, allowing the team to pass completely.

 

“Budo to Nunchuk,” Budo whispered into his TDC ear bud and microphone unit. “They’re fifty meters from the truck, in tactical single file. Whenever you’re ready...”

 

Budo slipped a small plastic tube from a pocket in his gi, which was about the length of a drinking straw but made of thicker plastic. He inserted a thin steel dart with a barbed tip and a plastic-feathered tail and then raised the ninja blowgun to his lips. He had trained to be able to put a dart through a bumblebee flying across a field at a hundred meters. Hitting any of the Alley-Vipers at much closer range would be child’s play.

 

Nunchuk slipped out from under the tanker he used for concealment, palming two shuriken from a pocket in the wristband of his gi. He also had his wakizashi out of its sheath and in his non-throwing hand. Bushido remained atop the tanker to cover his partner, ready to leap into the fray with his full-length, razor-sharp katana already drawn.

 

The trail man had been watching his comrades’ advance on the squad truck rather than observing the team’s rear when Nunchuk rose from his hiding place. Hearing a soft footfall behind him, the Viper finally spun on a heel to take a look and found that Nunchuk filled his surprised gaze.

 

The trail man opened his mouth to utter a warning shout, bringing his Type 88 rifle around to fire, when Nunchuk slashed once with the wakizashi, dropping into a low horse stance and bringing his throwing hand up over his head. Nunchuk’s cut went through and through the Alley-Viper’s neck, severing his head in one clean, powerful slice. As the trooper’s head fell from his shoulders, his rifle dropped limply to the ground with a clatter, drawing the attention of his teammates.

 

“What the fuck?” asked the number-three man, in shock, as he watched the Joe ninja behead his comrade. He swung his SMG around to fire at the black-clad ninja, as Nunchuk’s arm dropped, pitching his shuriken forward. The black steel throwing stars whistled through the night air, becoming embedded in the Alley-Viper’s chest and neck. He fell to the ground screaming for help, thrashing about in a pool of his blood as a short burst of 9mm fired from his weapon aimlessly into the air.

 

The number-two man reacted instinctively to the commotion behind him, swinging his weapon around and triggering it instantly. Nunchuk barely had heartbeats to drop to the ground and roll out of the line of fire, ducking in between two parked tankers for cover.

 

Bushido had also moved on instinct. To cover his partner, the ninja leaped from one tanker roof to the next until he was directly above the number-two man. He leaped from the top of the large vehicle without making any sound or battle cry, as his katana flashed downward.

 

The Alley-Viper that had gotten a shot off towards Nunchuk felt a momentary burning sensation in his elbows, as if someone had touched a hot poker to all of his pain receptors at once. He looked down towards where his hands and weapon should have been, only to find two bloody stumps remained. Bushido had successfully cut both of his forearms off with the katana as the ninja reached the ground next to the Alley-Viper. The number-two man had no time to scream out in pain before Bushido brought his deadly sword up to the soldier’s neck and drove the blood-stained blade right through.

 

Nunchuk finished off the number-three man with a quick stab of his wakizashi through the soldier’s uniform and into his heart, and then turned to warn his partner that the team leader was turning to fire. But before any words needed to leave his lips, the team leader dropped to the ground with a soft thud, his hand clutching at his neck.

 

Budo’s soft voice spoke in the ninjas’ ear buds. “Nunchuk and Bushido, you’re clear, courtesy of my venom-tipped blowgun dart.”

 

“Thanks, sword brother,” Nunchuk whispered in reply, as Bushido sheathed his katana and flashed his partner a thumbs-up.

 

***

 

The Alley-Viper noncom in charge of Team One, heading in from the south knew not to question the more senior NCO in Team Two when he had a bad feeling about something. Before rounding the corner made by the tanker truck on the end of the rank, he advised his troopers to stand ready for anything.

 

Unfortunately, as a leader, the sergeant was still inexperienced, impetuous and overeager, which was a dangerous combination. He had been placed in charge of a fire team because of his background as a shooter in the former Soviets’ Spetzialnoye Naznacheniya (SPETZNAZ) commandos, but had no formal leadership training except for what his platoon sergeant had the time to impart upon him.

 

Fortunately, the noncom had been bloodied in the street fighting in and around Grozny, the capital of rebellion-torn Chechnya, where he served during the Russian Federation government’s attempt to strangle the small ex-Soviet republic back into submission for acts of terrorism against the Moscow administration.

 

The sergeant had chosen to man the team’s Type 88 heavy rifle, and sent a point man out ahead of him, keeping the number-three and number-four man behind cover before ordering them to follow in a bounding overwatch. In pairs, the fire team had begun to shuffle towards their troop truck when the gunfire sounds from Team Two rolled their way.

 

“T’jbang, the south guy is already in tactical mode,” Banzai observed for his comrades on the ground. “Stay sharp in case the other teams start heading back.”

 

“Budo and Banzai, this is Storm Shadow,” the ninja force commander whispered into his TDC mic. “We’re going on the offensive. Abandon your positions and hunt down the other fire teams. Silence them and collect their weapons. They are the immediate threat to our escape right now. If we sow confusion among the civilians present, they can tie up any new security forces for us.”

 

Banzai tapped on his transmit button twice, sending two soft clicks as an acknowledgement to Storm Shadow. Then he pulled on the fabric of Budo’s gi, and the two men melted away into the darkness, leaping across the rows of tankers to find the other Alley-Viper security teams.

 

Out of sight of the Alley-Vipers in Team One, on the far side of the rank of trucks the troopers were advancing parallel to, T’jbang and T’Gin-Zu climbed softly up the steel ladders that allowed fuel handlers to get atop the tanker trucks and work their loading hatches. The Joe ninjas crouched silently atop the tanks, keeping their hands open and unencumbered for balance, as the Alley-Vipers quietly moved below them. The ninjas nodded to each other, and each one targeted a pair of troops to attack.

 

The ex-SPETZNAZ noncom thought he could feel the movement of the air around him change as he watched his point man cautiously inch a few steps forward. Then a black shape descended to the ground in front of him. The noncom raised his weapon defensively in front of his body, and felt a sharp blow to the abdomen as the assailant’s foot hit him there in a powerful snap kick.

 

The black shape of T’jbang turned to strike at the point man’s back, when the Cobra noncom recovered his composure and aimed his rifle at the attacker. He moved as quickly as his training and instincts had programmed his body to react. The noncom’s right thumb moved to click off the safety on his weapon, just as his point man absorbed a knife-edged karate chop against the neck near the shoulder blade.

 

The point man was alarmed, but the layers of ceramic armor that protected his shoulders and torso were not easily penetrated by an open handed blow. He turned and tried to connect with T’jbang, swinging his sub-machinegun around at waist level like a hammer.

 

T’jbang’s eyes flashed in both directions at once, and his hands reached over his shoulders to grasp onto handles that stuck up from his back. In the heartbeat that the Alley-Vipers took to bring their weapons to bear on T’jbang, he had drawn his daisho, the deadly pairing of long katana sword and short wakizashi sword. He brought the blades out of their leather scabbards with a smooth, well-oiled swoosh, flipping the handles around in his palms and then thrusting outwards with both arms.

 

The point man took T’jbang’s katana thrust directly through the abdomen, where the ninja promptly eviscerated him, making his internal organs spill out onto the dark pavement with one swift, practiced cut. The noncom found the wakizashi flash in the light of the overhead floodlights as it slashed across his neck and the angled tip of the blade dug deeply into the shoulder piece of his composite body armor. As the ex-SPETZNAZ noncom felt his own life slipping away, his finger tensed on the trigger of the Type 88 and it barked out an angry stream of bullets.

 

In the split second between the sword thrusts and the bullets firing, T’jbang found he had little room to maneuver. T’Gin-Zu was too far away to help, having dispatched both of his targets with a volley of well-placed shuriken from atop a tanker truck. Keeping hold of his blades, the ninja tucked his body into a rolling shape and tried to dive clear of the line of hot rounds that came from the noncom’s rifle. He was able to avoid all but two, which ripped into his right lower thigh. T’jbang landed painfully in a heap, as the gunfire stopped with the Cobra sergeant’s death.

 

“Dammit! T’jbang is down!” Banzai said into his radio mic from his observation position. “It looks like he got shot in his leg!”

 

“Everyone, collapse on the truck,” Storm Shadow ordered, tapping Dojo on the shoulder and pointing to the cab of the vehicle, indicating that the ninja was to get behind the wheel. “Gather any weapons and ammo that you can and move swiftly, my sword brothers. We have to make our move to leave this site before the other Cobra fire teams return, or the civilian workers get in contact with more troops.”

 

Banzai rose to his feet and motioned for Budo to go and help T’jbang move to the truck. “I’ll take care of the foreman’s shack,” the ninja said as he ran along the line of tankers to the rickety structure. The shack’s telephone wire ran from the roof of the small structure only a foot or so over the tops of the trucks, until it reached the nearest light pole, where the switching box also hung. Banzai stayed out of the civilians’ sight and severed the telephone wire with one swipe of his wakizashi blade. By the time he returned to the troop truck, the other ninja had arrived and were loading the handful of collected Alley-Viper weapons and setting T’jbang gently into the cargo bed.

 

Storm Shadow vaulted into the bed of the truck to look over the injuries T’jbang had received. He laid a palm on his comrade’s forehead to try to calm the fighter down while he gently felt the places where the Cobra bullets ripped through T’jbang’s black combat uniform and pierced his skin and muscle.

 

“You look like hell, sword brother,” the co-commander of the commandos said. “Calm yourself. Both bullets appear to have grazed you and did not penetrate deeply. The blood looks a lot worse than it is.”

 

“Easy for you to tell me to be calm,” T’jbang whispered. “You’re not shot.”

 

Storm Shadow pressed his palms together and knitted his fingers into a triangular shape. He brought the shape of his hands over T’jbang and stared at him through the triangle. When their eyes locked, it was almost as if Storm Shadow was putting his fellow ninja into a trance.

 

“This is an Arashikage mind focus technique,” Storm Shadow whispered. “Share with me your focus and I will share with you my chi. Block out the parts of your mind that understand your pain.”

 

T’jbang sighed once and began to relax. He didn’t flinch when Budo wrapped his bullet wounds with a large compression bandage and tied them tightly to stop the bleeding. When Storm Shadow saw that T’jbang was back under control, he slipped out of the truck’s cargo bed and pointed to the rest of his commandos.

 

“Mount up, brothers,” Storm Shadow said, climbing into the cab with two sub-machineguns to join Dojo. “It’s time to bug out of here.”

 

***

 

Meanwhile, at Saddam International Airport, Baghdad:

 

The Red Crescent DC-9-30 airliner touched down right on schedule, having been the only aircraft expected to arrive so late that night. Overhead, a flight of four Cobra Rattlers which had escorted the plane in from the Jordanian border banked away from Saddam International with orders to return to their patrol sector in western Iraq.

 

The whine of the aging turbines died out after the airliner parked alongside a large rusted-out hangar some distance from the main terminal of the airport. Even in the wee hours, the panic of impending war in Baghdad was driving foreigners to Saddam International, loaded down with the belongings they could carry, their families, and all the money they had available. The trickle of flights in and out of the country meant that almost everyone had to fend for themselves by buying their passage out of Iraq in cash from government functionaries who had taken over the ticketing and security checkpoints.

 

By order of the commercial aviation authorities, all incoming aircraft were staged far away from the cavernous, glass-enclosed main terminal, in order to prevent rioting among the civilians clamoring to escape. Oddly enough, a very limited military presence existed where the foreigners waited anxiously for any flight they could get out of Iraq.

 

Despite Cobra advisors insisting that tightening security would insure that the Allies wouldn’t make any sudden moves or bombing raids on the Iraqi capital, only the members of the Aviation Authority’s security force had been retained for crowd control and safety. The government’s airport administration was very fearful of the numerous press people that were evacuating, since the appearance of military personnel – and especially soldiers in Cobra blue – would be reported upon their arrival outside Iraq. The officials didn’t want to be blamed later for letting the secret of Cobra’s presence out on CNN, Sky News and the dozens of other news outlets represented.

 

“We have to move quickly,” Kamakura whispered to Quick-Kick, as the two Joes climbed out of their hiding place in the DC-9-30’s cargo compartment and prepared their silent weapons. There was very little room in the crawl space between the edges of the conformal cargo containers and the inner skin of the plane. So, the ninjas scrambled to the top of the container and belly-crawled from one to the next until they reached the area left purposely empty next to the cargo loading hatch.

 

“Shh,” Quick-Kick whispered, putting his finger to his lips and listening carefully. “I hear a lot of foot traffic topside. Sounds like the locals are doing a security sweep of the plane. Let’s not do anything to draw attention to ourselves, okay?”

 

“Keep cool, Quick-Kick,” Kamakura said, reaching for a small bulb that burned over the cargo loading door and plucking it from its socket. “Go check on Snake Eyes and Jinx while I see if the coast is clear.”

 

When the area around the cargo loading hatch was finally bathed in darkness and Kamakura’s eyes had adjusted to the change in light level, the ninja unlatched the small lookout port in the loading door. A minor detail in the Douglas airliner’s design, the lookout port was meant for cargo handlers inside the aircraft to be able to see outside before opening the hatch itself. In the event that passengers had to try to escape the plane through the cargo compartment, having a small porthole to check for fires outside the plane was a practical safety measure.

 

By removing the inside light bulb from its socket, Kamakura had made the cargo compartment darker than outside the plane, so there wouldn’t be any light leakage when he opened the porthole. He gazed outside through the two-inch wide looking glass and was able to pick out the scurrying ground service equipment as the aircraft support crews were given clearance to approach the plane. Just off to one side, the ninja could spot a Cobra Ringneck armored personnel carrier, parked alongside the plane with its lights off.

 

Quick-Kick reappeared at the loading door with Snake Eyes and Jinx. They quietly discussed the situation for a moment, until Snake Eyes indicated that they should move out immediately. Kamakura reached for the cargo door’s unlocking handle, pulled it out of the recessed space in the door skin, and rotated it counter-clockwise with a huff. The cargo door popped inward with a squeal and slid into tracks built into the doorjamb. The tracks guided the door up and away, but it took Quick-Kick and Kamakura to move the ninety-pound steel and aluminum hatch.

 

“Jesus, guys, that was about as subtle as a freight train,” Jinx groused, listening carefully for footfalls outside that might indicate an approaching guard. She pressed herself flat against the cargo compartment floor and poked her head out carefully to scan the surroundings. “All clear. No guards are handy. That Ringneck you spotted is about fifty meters away, and they left the hatches open.”

 

“Leave the ground crew coveralls behind,” Snake Eyes said through his artificial voice box. “We’ll stay in the shadow of the aircraft fuselage and procure that Ringneck.”

 

The quartet of ninjas silently shed the disguises that had helped get them aboard the Red Crescent flight, revealing their black, form-fitting combat gi. Kamakura and Quick-Kick lowered Snake Eyes out of the cargo compartment first, and the team leader dropped silently onto the tarmac, looking in all directions for threats. When he was sure that no one had seen his movement and the arriving ground service personnel were safely out of earshot at the nose end of the airliner, he motioned for the others to come out.

 

Jinx dropped to the ground next, and scrambled along the fuselage to the main landing gear struts. When she was in a good covering position, shielded from view by the large aircraft tires, she nodded to Snake Eyes. Kamakura and Quick-Kick got onto the ground in less than five seconds, and the ninja spread out to follow Jinx’s route to the landing gear.

 

From under the airliner, the ninja didn’t have a commanding view of their position. However, they identified a truck-mounted air stair with spotlights parked on the left side of the plane, at the passengers’ boarding door. A portable power generator was hooked up to the nose of the DC-9-30, feeding it electricity to keep the cabin lights burning. Aside from the Ringneck APC, a container lift, and a train of cargo dollies along with their tug vehicle were parked around the mobile air stair. Apparently, the cargo unloading crew was aboard the plane with the pilots and security sweep team, probably discussing procedures or getting permission to open up the aircraft.

 

A mechanical groan came from the tail cone of the DC-9, as the aft escape stair was lowered to the ground from above. The sound of hissing came from the stairwell as the pressurized air in the DC-9’s rear cabin equalized with the conditions outside. Three civilian cargo handlers, in greasy coveralls, walked down the aft steps and turned to unlock the cargo hatch, which the ninja had left open in their escape from the airliner.

 

“Shit,” Kamakura swore as he flattened against the black tarmac. “They’re gonna raise the alarm.”

 

“We’ve got to make a move before more security shows up,” Jinx said. “Or we can silence the ground bunnies.”

 

“They’re innocent civilians,” Snake Eyes vocalized. “We have no quarrel with them. Secure the Ringneck, and we’ll get out of here.”

 

***

 

The chief of the ground support crew walked from the aft stair around to the right side of the airliner, reaching up over his head to find the exterior hatch pull. Painted in Day-Glo Orange, the crew chief didn’t need his flashlight to locate the handle. He pulled it straight down, expecting to hear the click of the lock releasing. When he didn’t hear the anticipated sound, he pumped the handle up and down three or four times. Frustrated and thinking the lock was faulty, the chief walked out from under the plane and called for his assistants’ attention.

 

The assistants were laughing and smoking at the bottom of the aft stairs and turned to see what the crew chief wanted, when their boss flicked on his flashlight and played it along the side of the airliner. All three men’s jaws dropped when they saw that the cargo door was already open.

 

“Farukh!” the crew chief shouted in Arabic. “Summon the security men in the plane! Now!”

 

***

 

With the crew chief’s back to them and still protected by the dark shadow of the airliner, the ninjas sprinted towards the Cobra APC. They scrambled into the troop door and were lucky to find no one home. Kamakura moved forward into the driver’s compartment and settled behind the steering yoke, quickly familiarizing himself with the gauges and controls. Jinx and Snake Eyes climbed into the turret basket and checked out the vehicle’s 90mm self-loading gun while Quick-Kick secured the door they had entered through.

 

It had taken thirty seconds for the ground personnel to bring the Cobra security sweep team down to the cargo hatch. Five Vipers and a Neo-Viper in charge of the detachment charged down the aft stair and flashed their powerful aiming lights into the cargo compartment as the crew chief pointed and frantically talked about his discovery.

 

‘Start it up,” Jinx told Kamakura, rapping on the back of his driver’s seat with her tabi sock. She had found the Ringneck’s co-axial machinegun and with a clatter of metal on metal, loaded and charged the weapon with a belt of ammunition.

 

Kamakura scanned the control panel and found the push-button ignition. He pressed the electric starter and felt the comforting vibration of the vehicle’s throaty truck diesel as it turned over. “We’re in business,” the ninja called out. “Watch the baddies, I’m shifting this pig into gear!”

 

***

 

“...You can’t open the cargo compartment from the cockpit on this model,” the ground crew chief said to the Neo-Viper and his soldiers, shaking his head. “And that cargo door is heavy. It usually takes two strong men to open it, even with the power assist module that was retrofit to these planes.”

 

“Agreed,” the Neo-Viper said. He motioned for Farukh, the ground crewman who operated the container lift. “Farukh, come here and bring the lift. Troopers, lock and load your weapons.”

 

As the Neo-Viper was craning his head to inspect the door opening, he heard the sound of the Ringneck’s engine turning over. “What the hell?” he asked of no one in particular, as the Vipers in his detachment spun around in confusion.

 

The Ringneck lurched forward and turned away from the parking tarmac. Its engine, derived from a commercial truck model, roared as Kamakura goosed the accelerator pedal and steered it around the parked ground equipment.

 

“Fire, you fools!” the Neo-Viper shouted, raising his machine pistol and firing at the armored carrier. His first volley of bullets barely missed the head of the ground crew chief, who dove to the ground screaming in fear. “Stop that APC!”

 

***

 

“They’re shooting!” Quick-Kick reported from the APC’s troop bay. He squinted to look through a Plexiglas viewing block, trying to count the flashes of weapons as the Vipers opened up one by one. “I count five or six hostiles under the tail cone!”

 

“GPS and mapping is up on the TDC,” Snake Eyes said through his voice synthesizer. “We need to cross the main runway and bug out east.”

 

“East it is!” Kamakura said, pulling hard on the control yoke of the vehicle until the console’s compass read a heading of due east. He then worked the shifter to change the gears in the APC’s transmission, attempting to coax more speed out of the wheeled vehicle.

 

Jinx rotated the turret around, slewing the co-ax until she could see the Vipers shooting at the Ringneck. Pulling the trigger, her machinegun chattered as it sprayed hot lead at the enemy team.

 

***

 

The bullets from the Ringneck’s co-ax rattled and clanged as they ricocheted off the asphalt tarmac and the aluminum outer skin of the DC-9. While his soldiers kept up the volume of fire on the APC, the Neo-Viper ran for cover behind the aft stairs and plucked his portable radio out of a utility pouch.

 

“Arrival Security Team One to Tower!” the Neo-Viper said angrily. “Infiltrators have landed with the Red Crescent flight! They’ve stolen our Ringneck! Call the Cobra garrison on the airport highway and tell them to block it!”

 

***

 

“I’m getting radio traffic from the Cobra security team,” Jinx said, listening to a headset that was hanging next to her loader’s station. “We have to cut that message off!”

 

“I’m on it,” Snake Eyes said. In the space between where he and Jinx sat, the solid steel breech of the Ringneck’s 90mm gun opened with a clang and the autoloader rammed home a solid core shell. The breech snapped shut on its own and Snake Eyes looked through the gunner’s viewfinder at the Cobra troops. He waited a few heartbeats as the three civilian ground bunnies scrambled clear of the gunfight, and then rested his foot on the firing trigger. “Fire in the hole!”

 

The entire barrel of the Ringneck’s main gun shot backward against its damper shocks as the round was fired. The spent casing of the shell fell out of the bore evacuator with a hollow clunk and rolled into the turret sump while the breech re-cycled to its open position.

 

The APC’s round flew across the distance to its target without making a sound. It hit the tarmac just under the DC-9’s aft stairs and slammed itself into the pavement, the concussion blast throwing the Vipers in every direction. Most of the impact force was reflected upward, slamming the aft stairs into the plane’s fuselage, and making the Neo-Viper hiding on them tumble into the aircraft.

 

Although the 90mm gun round did a modicum of external damage to the Red Crescent relief aircraft, Snake Eyes had calculated the effect of his shot to a tee. The impact of the folding stairs had thrown the Neo-Viper against an inner bulkhead hard enough to snap his neck, and his radio fell silent. The other Vipers were badly injured and unable to keep firing, and the civilians weren’t scratched.

 

***

 

The Ringneck ground its way through the sandy areas between the taxiways as Kamakura nursed all the speed the vehicle could muster out of it. Upon reaching the edge of the main runway, the APC caught some air as its wheels bounced off the hard-paved track.

 

“Snake Eyes, you’re going to need to traverse that turret,” Kamakura urged, spotting several pinpricks of light ahead of their route of travel. “We’ve got a motorized patrol between us and the perimeter’s cyclone fence!”

 

Two aging Iraqi Army AML-90 armored cars squealed to a stop along the perimeter road when their commanders saw the Ringneck crossing the main runway. Their crews worked feverishly to rotate the hand-cranked turrets in the right direction and load the main guns while the crew commanders dismounted with RPG-7V launchers. As soon as they could be brought to bear, the French-made AAT-40 co-axial guns opened up on the stolen Cobra vehicle.

 

Kamakura shielded his face when a volley of machinegun rounds bounced off the bullet-resistant front windshield of his compartment. “I’m taking fire up here!” he yelled, jerking the control yoke reflexively to the side and slamming on the APC’s brake pedal. “You folks need to make a hole up in front!”

 

Geysers of sand and displaced asphalt erupted around the Ringneck as the AML-90’s cut loose with their main guns. The older manual weapons were difficult to aim, which was why the security authority was issued the vehicles in the first place. But the crews had been veteran soldiers from the Iran-Iraq War, and they tried hard to make up for their equipment’s shortfalls.

 

“They’re bracketing us!” Jinx yelled, trying to make out the AML-90’s in the day sight mounted in front of her seat. “Slewing the turret right to lock on! I see two shooters!” She yanked on the trigger pull for the co-ax machinegun once more, cooking off a fresh volley of bullets.

 

The AML-90 crews fired again, as Snake Eyes punched a button on the autoloader panel to bring a HEAT round to the gun breech. One of the Iraqi rounds flew long, kicking up a cloud of sand behind the APC. The other struck the sloped troop compartment in a glancing blow, which ended up deflecting the round harmlessly away.

 

The impact of the enemy round on the Ringneck cause the vehicle to lurch sideways and Kamakura frantically worked the control yoke to compensate. “Holy shit!” he yelled from the driver’s compartment. “Are we hit?”

 

“We caught one!” Quick-Kick yelled from the troop bay, searching high and low for a fire extinguisher and a spare weapon that he could fire from the rear firing ports if he needed to. “There’s no fire in here! I think it was too flat an angle to hurt us!”

 

Snake Eyes had one of the AML-90’s in the center of his crosshairs when Kamakura straightened out the Ringneck’s line of travel. He called out, “Fire in the hole!” and pressed his foot on the main gun’s trigger.

 

The Joes’ HEAT warhead flew straight and true, striking the targeted AML-90 just under its rear wheel assembly. The thinner belly armor was torn violently apart as the explosive blast ripped through the old armored car. The force of the shot picked the vehicle’s fiery shell up and flipped it over and over in the air before the vehicle returned to earth with a sickening crash.

 

“Reload!” Kamakura yelled, steering for what he thought was a sweet spot in the perimeter fencing. He jerked the yoke a few times to avoid the smoky streak of an RPG-7V shot as it arced towards the Ringneck. “Fence line is coming up!”

 

Snake Eyes auto-loaded another HEAT round and lined the gun turret up with the second AML-90. The armored car’s commander scrambled out from cover, backlit by the flames from the first car, and fired his RPG at the Joes. The shaped charge rocket fell short of the APC, kicking up a cloud of sand that got swallowed by the Ringneck’s air intake.

 

Kamakura felt the whole APC jerk under him when the diesel engine’s airflow was interrupted. The engine power gauges all dropped to nearly zero and it sounded like the Ringneck was going to stall out. “I’m losing the motor!” he warned, punching the electric starter button with a frustrated fist.

 

Snake Eyes didn’t call out another warning when his crosshairs were on the surviving AML-90. The Ringneck’s main gun kicked again and the dead-center shot ripped through the armored car’s right side crew door. The vehicle burst wide open like a piece of popcorn.

 

The Ringneck rolled forward under its momentum while Kamakura tried to restart the power pack. Quick-Kick climbed atop the APC and found the pile of sand that was clogging the dust filter that protected the engine air intake. Keeping his head down, he swept the pile away and cleared the intake. After a dozen failed attempts on the ignition button, Kamakura smiled when Quick-Kick’s efforts allowed the engine to turn over. Shifting the APC back into gear, he grinned when it responded to his controls once again.

 

“Canister is loaded,” Snake Eyes advised, aiming the gun at the perimeter fence. “Cover your ears; this is gonna be loud!” The canister round Snake Eyes fired into the fence exploded on contact, shredding the barricade enough for the Ringneck to punch through. Leaving the light of the burning fires behind, the stolen Cobra vehicle retreated into the darkness of the night.

 

“Stick to the open areas and go off-road,” Snake Eyes told Kamakura. “Let’s find a safe hide to call headquarters and report in.”

 

***

 

Iraqi Army Regional Command and Logistics Center

(Collocated with Crude Oil Processing Facility #5)

Mosul, Iraq

0230 hours, local time

 

The military five-ton truck that Storm Shadow’s team had commandeered was blacked out, while its occupants prepared to fight their way off the enemy’s materiel storage base. The vehicle’s long-suffering diesel engine groaned and revved as Dojo coaxed every ounce of power that the motor could put out.

 

“Check this crate out,” T’jbang said in the truck’s cargo bed, pointing to a wooden box that had been secured to the compartment’s front bulkhead with bungee cords. “C’mon, Banzai, help me with this lid.”

 

“Can’t you see that we’re about to barrel through this facility’s main gate and arouse every Cobra and Iraqi soldier for miles around?” Banzai asked, locking and cocking a Type 88 combat rifle that he had taken from the corpse of a dead Cobra Alley-Viper the commandos had left behind. “Have you lost so much blood from that bullet grazing that your brain'’ gone south? Grab your SMG and get ready to open up a six-pack o’ fire fight!”

 

T’jbang and Budo worked at the lid of the wooden crate, smashing at it with the butts of their MP-5A SMG’s until the nails that held the top together pulled loose. The two ninja rooted through the shredded stuffing materials and Budo grinned brightly when T’jbang produced the first of a number of RPG-18 disposable rocket launchers.

 

“What did you guys find?” Banzai asked in the darkness, peering outside the truck from under the edge of the canvas cargo bed shroud.

 

“We found the Alley-Vipers’ firepower,” Budo replied, accepting an RPG-18 and extending the tailpiece of the firing tube.

 

The RPG-18 was a Russian version of the American-designed M-72 LAW, which fired a rocket-propelled PG-18V shaped charge warhead from a disposable launch tube. Although the Russian copy of the LAW came many years after the M-72 had been tried in combat, it was still a deadly armor-defeating weapon system in the hands of even an untrained conscript.

 

“Gate’s coming up,” Banzai said, shifting his crouching position so that he could comfortably fire the Type 88 in his hands. “Better get your firecracker pointed out that-a-way.”

 

In the cab of the truck, Storm Shadow loaded both of the MP-5A sub-machineguns that he and Dojo shared. While Dojo fought the wheel of the truck and steered for the army camp’s security gate, the ninja leader strapped himself into the passenger’s seat. Storm Shadow opened the thin sheet metal door on his side of the cab, and loosened his safety belt enough to be able to lean halfway outside. Bracing one foot on the truck’s right-side running board and the other inside the cab, the ninja propped the SMG’s on the door and waited for the guard shack to come into firing range.

 

Banzai, Bushido, Nunchuk and T’Gin-Zu crouched against the sides of the truck’s cargo bed, ready to open up with the team’s captured small arms, while T’jbang slid himself towards the tailgate, so he could re-load and hand out replacement weapons as the shooters went dry. Budo drew his wakizashi and kept the four RPG-18’s they found in the crate close at hand.

 

“Wait for the boss,” Nunchuk said from his position on the truck’s right side, as he stared down the iron sights of an MP-5A. “When Storm Shadow opens up, that’s our cue to bust that guard house wide open.”

 

The Mosul base’s main gate wasn’t much in terms of a deterrent to a concentrated assault; the distance from the base perimeter to the facility’s vital areas was the real simplicity in tactical thinking. If the patrols around the base or the single main gate were to be breached, the defenders would trade space for time, forcing an attacking element to move slowly across open ground while the base coalesced into a strong counter-attack.

 

Essentially, the main gate was a small structure made of steel-reinforced concrete, which housed the squad of duty guards. It protected an opening in the base’s perimeter, which was made up of lines of concertina wire, cyclone fencing, and a perimeter road that was patrolled by soldiers in French AML-90 armored cars or Stinger jeeps.

 

At night, the entrance was covered in the light of two pole-mounted spotlights. The thousand-candlepower spots afforded the security squad about seventy yards of clear sight to identify any approaching vehicles or people to the outside, and if they were lucky, twenty-five yards of vision to spot trouble from vehicles coming from the inside.

 

Storm Shadow nodded to Dojo, who shifted the truck into a neutral gear and let the engine noise die down to a dull roar, while the vehicle coasted towards the gate. Then the ninja commander raised one of his MP-5A’s, set to single-shot, and fired at the spotlight poles.

 

***

 

Most of the Viper squad members guarding the main gate were too busy playing poker in the security bay to even notice the noise of the approaching truck. At the late hour of the night, the ones that even thought about it just assumed it was a noisy engine attached to one of the base motor pool’s “tits up platoon” vehicles. The harsh moniker was attached to any of the base’s motorized equipment that ran so badly that it spent more time with the mechanics than with the troops.

 

“Do you guys hear that diesel?” one of the Vipers asked, craning his head to listen over the soft hum of the security bay’s climate control unit. “They must have a rookie driver running the perimeter patrol. That’s the only time the motor pool officer puts a ‘tits up’ vehicle on the line – when they have a newbie that’s more likely to wreck his ride than make it through an all-night tour.”

 

The rest of the squad chuckled collectively, as the losers of the poker hand begrudgingly tossed pay chits into the center of the circle the soldiers had formed while sitting on the floor. The Viper who heard the truck had also won the hand, and gathered up the Cobra vouchers greedily.

 

From the confines of the security bay, Storm Shadow’s two individual shots seemed little more than minor backfires from a distant vehicle. That was, until the bathing glow of the spotlights disappeared, and only a few cheap light bulbs illuminated the guardhouse.

 

“Holy shit!” the station’s squad leader exclaimed. “Fall out to the gate! Lock and load!”

 

While the security station was a fairly well protected building, there was no contingency for the guards to have night vision goggles should the lights go out. Because of that fact, the Vipers were already at a distinct disadvantage. When the handful of troopers piled out of the guardhouse and began to let their eyes adjust to the darkness, they could hear the soft idling of the truck. But the darkness disoriented the soldiers, who thought the truck was coming from outside the base.

 

“Okay, Dojo,” Storm Shadow whispered, resting both MP-5A’s on the upper lip of the passenger side door, ready to fire. “Light ‘em up.”

 

Dojo gunned the accelerator pedal on the truck and got the vehicle’s speed up. When he judged that the vehicle was close enough, he turned on the high beams. The instant bright light flash-blinded the Vipers manning the gate and illuminated them as targets for Storm Shadow’s sub-machineguns.

 

Nunchuk spotted the flashes from Storm Shadow’s sub-machineguns when the commando leader opened up and called for the other ninja to fire at will. Banzai and Bushido fired into the Cobra security squad from the left side of the truck, and T’Gin-Zu picked off a pair of Vipers that tried to sprint clear of the roadway gate.

 

Budo slashed at the canvas tarpaulin that covered the cargo bed with his wakizashi, slitting enough of an opening to aim his first RPG-18 at the concrete guardhouse. “Back blast area clear!” the commando shouted, depressing the firing button on the RPG tube.

 

The PG-18V grenade shot out of the launch tube on an orange plume of chemical propellant and oxidizer. The shaped HE warhead punched through one of the shack’s firing slits and exploded, filling the structure with fire and smoke. The detonation only killed one of the men on the Viper squad, but the combined fire from the other Joes accounted for six more of the scrambling enemy guards.

 

“Take out the roadblock, Budo!” Nunchuk yelled over the loud punch-punch-punch of his Type 88 rifle. “Everyone else, keep pouring it on! The boss is out of ammo!”

 

Budo snatched up a second RPG and yanked the tube into its shooting position. He slashed at the cover tarp once more, right over the truck cab, and shot the grenade directly ahead of the speeding vehicle.

 

The second RPG round blasted the heavy timber crossbeam that the main gate used to block the opening in the perimeter, literally splintering the wood and spreading fast-moving shrapnel around the area. As the remaining few Vipers cowered on the ground or moaned from sustaining wounds, Dojo steered the truck through the breach in the gate and sped the Joes off into the night.

 

***

 

G.I. Joe Command Center, S-2 Section

King Khalid Military City

0230 hours, local time

 

Swansong tapped softly on the molybdenum-steel alloy casing of her Panasonic Toughbook laptop computer as she eyed a wall clock and pondered the intelligence data that had been reported to her during the previous few hours when her shop’s late shift was wrapping up their analysis projects. The special, ruggedized unit was somewhat difficult to acquire for a personal computer, but some of her connections in the United States had clued her in on one that had been liquidated from an electrical power company. Because of a downsizing a year or so before she bought the Toughbook, the power company had let go a number of line crewmen who used computers like hers to connect with their crew dispatchers while repairing the power grids, and the firm had to eventually let go of its overrun stockpile of laptops to further recoup its financial losses for the year.

 

The top-of-the-line Toughbook CF-28 was already wired for an internal wireless modem, which she had Mainframe install and activate for her just after arriving in-country to work with the Joe team. Originally under the premise of using the wireless to link anonymously into U.S. Department of Defense intranets that were set up in Saudi Arabia without having to use Mainframe’s isolated network that the Joes maintained, the wireless connection had proved useful for doing all manner of intelligence data collecting and allowed Swansong to work from just about anywhere she needed to on base, even using a cellular tower erected at Hafr-al-Batin Air Base to stay connected.

 

As a matter of fact, Mainframe had already used his networking expertise (and some not-so-legal methods) to link a number of other laptops out to the DOD intranets that belonged to command staffers like Steeler and Crypto for the same sort of unrestricted access. Although the connections were potentially a breach of operational security, having extra outlets for information gathering bypassed the usual red tape the CENTCOM G-2 department would occasionally put up when the Joes needed critical intelligence or operational planning data.

 

The temporary Joe Team S-2 staff officer powered down the workstation terminal that Mainframe had set up in her office and turned on the Toughbook. When the unit displayed its Microsoft Windows XP desktop, she launched a wireless connection manager and then waited for a few moments as the computer’s net connection became operational. When the general Internet link became active, she launched it, and then found an icon for a third-party Instant Messaging manager that monitored all of her personal chat and e-mail accounts.

 

While the IM manager program logged Swansong into her respective America Online, Yahoo, IRQ, IRC, E-Pop and MSN accounts, the clock on her desk ticked away the seconds until the minute hand rested on the seven. The time was approaching 0235.

 

As the seconds ticked on, and the clock promptly ticked onto 0235, the built-in speaker on her Toughbook dinged, reporting the arrival of a new Instant Message. With a glance at the color-coded frame of the message, she knew the account was originating from a Yahoo address that belonged to an acquaintance of hers in the States. With a few quick mouse clicks, Swansong brought up the incoming message and prepared to reply.

 

Haifa-or-Bust 1:  You’re punctual, as always.

 

AF Sara Lev:      Like you of all people would expect otherwise.

 

Haifa-or-Bust 1:  Are there any new developments in your neighborhood?

 

“Sheesh,” Swansong thought as she sighed to herself and typed her witty reply. “What’s the hurry all of a sudden?”

 

AF Sara Lev:      You just cut right to the chase, don’t you? Whatever happened to all that casual net flirting and the usual pleasantries?

 

Haifa-or-Bust 1:  I’ll talk about rocking your world later, and I’ll even ask how your day was, if it’ll make you happy. Please humor me for a moment. The boss is nipping at my heels to get my news story finished.

 

AF Sara Lev:      Aww. I’m so sorry. :-)

 

Haifa-or-Bust 1:  Can you confirm something for me?

 

AF Sara Lev:      That’s why I’m here.

 

Haifa-or-Bust 1:  Did your friends unearth something big southwest of the Big B?

 

AF Sara Lev:      Sure did. They found a nest of snakes and this Super Gun thing.

 

Haifa-or-Bust 1:  Thanks. We thought so. Has there been any talk of erasing that blemish?

 

AF Sara Lev:      Yeah. But the usual argumentative shit’s been flying a lot ‘round here. Like the two biggest neighborhood dogs going at it over a scrap of meat on the ground.

 

Haifa-or-Bust 1:  The boss isn’t happy about the development. He said it should be headline news. But he also told me to ask you about your mother back home. Is she well?

 

AF Sara Lev:      She was, the last time I checked up on her by phone. Thank your boss for his concern for me.

 

The mention of Swansong’s mother got her mind going. It had been a prearranged code word between her friend behind the “Haifa-or-Bust 1” screen name and her that was meant to start a very secret chain of events unfolding.

 

Haifa-or-Bust 1:  Will do. My boss and I want to send her some flowers for her birthday. It’s the least we can do since your Uncle has you on retainer. We were planning on calling Joshua’s Florist on the West Side. Isn’t it coming up in the next few days?

 

“Uh oh,” Swansong thought, when she remembered the meaning of the reference to flowers and her mom’s birthday. Her secret benefactors in MOSSAD knew that the powers-that-be in the Israeli government were planning a strike. “Joshua’s Florist” and mention of Manhattan’s West Side were simply innocent-looking code words that really meant “Haifa-or-Bust 1” was revealing that his superiors were preparing to execute Israel’s deadliest form of deterrent.

 

The reference to Joshua’s Florist was really the Israeli Defense Forces - Air Force “Operational Plan Joshua,” which targeted an enemy capital that threatened Israeli sovereignty with an attack from a solitary IDF-AF A-4 Skyhawk fighter-bomber. The special A-4 and its “top-of-the-ace-heap” volunteer pilot were armed with a single, American-manufactured, 1960’s vintage B-32 “area denial weapon”.

 

In essence, the plan was a suicide mission to deliver a nuclear weapon upon the enemy to decapitate its leadership and central command and control, thereby robbing the nation’s military of its orders and ability to fight in an organized manner. Over the plan’s history, many luminary combat aces of the IDF-AF had volunteered to be in the pilot rotation for Plan Joshua, including some that already wore stars on their shoulders.

 

“West Side” meant the Israeli Air Force’s nuclear base, hidden deep in the country’s interior, where the secret stockpile of Israel’s atomic weapons was being stored prior to implementing the Joshua plan. It was obviously west of Baghdad, and the nuclear arsenal’s exact location was a closely-guarded secret.

 

The situation, or the threat of continued Cobra and Iraqi aggression, had to be severe enough for the Israeli prime minister and his government’s cabinet functionaries to even consider their nuclear solution. The implication of that danger meant that her true duty within the Joe Team was even more important.

 

Swansong, or U.S. Air Force Major Sara Levinson, was really a cover identity. She had grown up and spent most of her formative years as Sara Levyatov, a citizen of the State of Israel.

 

Before taking on her secret identity, she had been a promising teenager who was recruited into the Heyl Ha’Avir (IDF Air Force) for a reserve pilot training program at twenty-one, and had excelled enough in training to be posted to an A-4 Skyhawk attack unit. After gaining combat flying experience with the Skyhawk, she then became a dogfighter with an elite F-4E Phantom unit, which eventually transitioned to F-15I air superiority fighters later in her career. By the age of 30, she was a full Colonel in the IDF-AF Reserve, equivalent to an active-duty Major in pay and benefits, and held the position of Squadron Operations Officer in her “regular component” unit’s backup organization.

 

As was common practice during the times when Israel’s security was threatened from all sides, their military had found innovative ways to incorporate regulars and reservists together rapidly for any contingency. In Sara’s case, she was part of an associate fighter squadron that flew their collocated active unit’s aircraft when the main unit’s pilots were rotated out of the aerial battle zones or their number had been depleted due to injuries.

 

The reservists and regulars often trained together several times a year to maintain proficiency, and the reservists were usually employed by the government in peacetime as support pilots for the civil authorities, or flew clandestine reconnaissance missions using unarmed civilian aircraft over contested border areas. Swansong had seen a handful of bloody engagements prior to departing Israel on her MOSSAD assignment, and come out of them all unscathed.

 

Swansong had been sent to infiltrate the Joes and to serve as an observer, passing information to Tel Aviv and her MOSSAD handler (“Haifa-or-Bust 1”) concerning the state of the battle against Cobra. She was also tasked to be an emergency asset, someone who could take on a specific threat to Israeli security without implicating Tel Aviv and without forcing the central government to resort to their Joshua plan.

 

The combat pilot thought quickly, considering her role as the Joes’ temporary S-2 officer. She thought she might be able to wing some paperwork and figure out a way to take out Camp Al-Shu’a conventionally. But she had to finagle it under General Tomahawk’s radar, and especially under the noses of the CENTCOM brass, since there were no official attack sanctions against Baghdad that had been issued by General Franks and his staff.

 

She considered that MOSSAD’s orders had been perfectly clear. Her job was to prevent the use of the Joshua option for as long as possible, even if it meant sacrificing herself to delay it. Since the Israeli central government often changed through elections and/or the deaths of their heads of state and key ministers, MOSSAD felt that the people with their fingers on the nuclear button were often unpredictable with every new entry in the political game, and that they collectively had to have a safety valve. In the case of the current Cobra-Iraq crisis, Swansong was it.

 

AF Sara Lev:      I’ve got the flowers covered. You’re sweet to offer though. But I’ll let you know in three days if I can’t get in contact with FTD and arrange the delivery in time. That way, you can pull my cookies out of the fire, just in the nick of time.

 

Haifa-or-Bust 1:  OK. Keep us posted, will you? I hope you have a bandit day tomorrow.

 

AF Sara Lev:      No such luck. But I’m planning to make things happen in the next couple of days.

 

Haifa-or-Bust 1:  Good deal. Our prayers go to you and your friends over there.

 

AF Sara Lev:      Thanks, my good friend. You can rock my world any time when I get home. Good night.

 

When Swansong dropped the chat window from her screen, she clicked a few more times with her mouse, launching a draft readiness drill document in her word processor. With a few keystrokes, she had updated the document and the digital approval signature, e-mailing it over to Hafr-al-Batin Air Base’s Flight Operations team.

 

Major Levinson marked her date book to remind herself to visit the airfield and observe the combat flight readiness drill she had just ordered, and then checked the time on her desk clock to see how quickly her morning staff briefing with General Tomahawk was approaching. She made sure that the clock’s alarm was set to ring early enough to give her plenty of time to freshen up and change uniforms before going up the two flights of steps to the S-2 shop’s main working areas. Afterwards, Swansong pulled out a soft travel pillow and went right to sleep, resting her head atop the steel desk and stretching out in her chair.

 

***

 

Baghdad-Mosul Highway

10 miles south of Mosul

0300 hours, local time

 

“Dammit, the engine’s cutting out on us,” Dojo cursed, pounding his fist against the truck’s dashboard as the diesel under the hood began to sputter and go silent.

 

“Pull it over to the side but keep it on the road,” Storm Shadow said. “We’ll check it out and see how bad the motor is.”

 

Dojo cut the engine of the truck and it rolled under its own momentum to a stop on the side of the empty multi-lane highway. Storm Shadow ordered the ninjas in the cargo bed to bail out and seek cover, while he moved to the front of the truck and climbed on the bumper. When he was high enough up to open the hood, he lifted it by its handle and took a look inside the engine compartment.

 

Dojo climbed down from the truck cab and cradled an MP-5 sub-machinegun in his hands. He glanced cautiously back and forth along the highway for approaching vehicles before whispering over his shoulder, “Can we still run it, boss?”

 

“Sheesh,” Storm Shadow said, shaking his head. “This motor has had it. There has got to be a good dozen bullet holes in the radiator, and some of the hoses have been shot completely away. At least they didn’t puncture the fuel tank; we’d have been crispy critters if that happened.”

 

Nunchuk made his way up to the truck after seeing to the rest of Storm Shadow’s team. “Are we still mobile, boss?” the ninja asked.

 

“Looks like we’re not for the moment,” Dojo replied while Storm Shadow reached down into the engine to grope for salvageable components. After finding none, the Funny Platoon leader shook his head once more.

 

“How is T’jbang?” Storm Shadow asked Nunchuk, dusting off his hands and slamming the hood of the truck down with a hollow thud.

 

“He’s madder than a stuck pig,” Nunchuk reported. “But the bullet hits in his thigh were clean through and through. We’ve bound him up, stopped the bleeding, and he’s ignoring the pain.”

 

“Okay,” Storm Shadow said. “Get the others. We have to push this truck into the drainage ditch. Strip anything we can use and get a blind set up to cover T’jbang. Divide up the ammo among everyone and run a roll of fabric down the fuel filler pipe. If we see a patrol coming, we can light this truck’s gas tank up and steal the patrol’s vehicle.”

 

“Got it boss,” Dojo said, running to summon the rest of the team. Within moments, the ninjas were stripping the truck of its canvas tonneau cover, jerry cans full of water, and spare magazines of ammunition for the weapons they had stolen from the Alley-Vipers in Mosul.

 

When the usable supplies were piled up at a safe distance from the truck, Dojo switched places with Storm Shadow and Nunchuk took up an overwatch position on the opposite side of the highway. With Dojo in the cab to man the steering wheel, the other ninjas rested their hands on the rear lift gate and bumper and pushed hard. They got the truck rolling just enough for Dojo to aim the front of it at the highway’s drainage ditch, that ran along the soft shoulder of the roadway. The vehicle nosed forward, pitching inextricably into the ditch at an angle and stopping with a metal-grinding groan.

 

The Joe ninjas scrambled with their gear to the side of the road opposite the truck when Dojo lit the roll of fabric stuck into the gas tank. They all took cover when the remaining fuel in the vehicle burst into flames and instantly engulfed the truck cab.

 

“Now what?” Banzai asked quietly, crouching against the sloping sand of the ditch with an assault rifle trained at the road.

 

“Now, we wait for a patrol and hope that one comes long before sunrise,” Storm Shadow said. “We’ll set up some shelter to keep warm and sleep in shifts. Dojo and Nunchuk will take the first watch. Use silent signals to communicate as much as possible, and no campfires. We don’t want to give away our position when we set an ambush for any patrol that comes to look at the truck burning.”

 

The ninjas didn’t have to wait long for something to come along. Dojo looked up into the air as his ears picked up a soft whooshing sound from the south that was growing louder.

 

“Hear that?” Nunchuk whispered. “That whooshing sound?”

 

“Yeah,” Dojo replied. “Keep your mouth shut. Sounds like a fast mover.”

 

***

 

0310 hours, local time

 

The single Cobra Hurricane fighter was descending to a flight level of a thousand feet, to line up for approach on the Mosul auxiliary airfield. Its pilot, a patrol-weary Strato-Viper, spotted the burning truck from above and took a slow orbit around the site to give it a look.

 

“Hurricane Six-Six-Niner to Mosul Ground Control Intercept,” the pilot said with a yawn. “Do you guys have any reports of a vehicle incident on the Baghdad highway?”

 

“GCI to Six-Six-Niner,” the duty controller in Mosul replied. “That’s a negative. What do you see?”

 

“Six-Six-Niner,” the pilot said. “I’m southeast of the inner marker on the approach line, about ten miles from the city limits. There’s an Iraqi Army truck on fire and in the ditch on the Baghdad-Mosul Highway. I’m at one thousand feet and bingo fuel. Can’t tell you much more.”

 

“Roger that, Six-Six-Niner,” the duty controller replied, picking up a telephone to dial the regional highway patrol station. “Return to your approach vector. Clear to land on runway one-eight. Wind is five knots across the field. Set your radio altimeter to one-five-point-five. I’m sending the yokels out for that truck.”

 

“Six-Six-Niner copies,” the pilot said, banking his fighter back onto the airfield approach course. “See you on the ground.”

 

***

 

“Think that fast mover saw us?” Nunchuk whispered, as the Hurricane fighter overhead turned on its landing lights and flew off into the night.

 

“Can’t say,” Dojo replied. “But it’s a sure bet that if he took a loop around us, he’s already reported the truck to someone. Hopefully the response is something we can manage.”

 

Fifteen minutes later, Dojo roused the rest of the ninjas as three vehicles raced down the highway from Mosul. The first two had flashing blue lights on their rooftops, and the third was a blacked-out, boxy wheeled vehicle with an odd tubular shape on its roof that looked like a gun barrel.

 

Storm Shadow made the silent signal for “spread out” and the ninjas fanned out into single positions along the roadway, hiding behind rocks or pressed against the inside slope of the drainage ditch.

 

The cars squealed to a stop at a safe distance from the burning truck, each one occupied by a single, blue-uniformed Iraqi Highway Patrolman. They stepped out of their vehicles and began to unload safety barricades from the trunks of their cruisers while the larger vehicle rolled up to the burning truck.

 

The larger vehicle’s roof began to rise, lifting its tubular assembly into the air. At the same time, an angled panel in front flipped forward and the vehicle’s driver climbed out with a red fire extinguisher in hand.

 

“I don’t think that little can is gonna put a dent in that fire,” the armored carrier’s commander said, climbing down from the troop bay. “Just let the fire burn itself out.”

 

Storm Shadow drew his finger across his throat and pointed at the soldiers and highway patrolmen milling around the truck. Then he flashed the hand signal for “silent weapons only”. As a unit, the ninja crept out of their positions and moved across the road like black wraiths.

 

The fire had the attention of the Cobra troopers and Iraqi policemen. Dojo and Storm Shadow took care of the highway patrol cops by slitting their throats from behind and dumping their corpses into the drainage ditch beside the pavement.

 

However, the COILS troopers that had come out in the APC were more alert. The driver whirled about when he heard the ninjas approach, and had his combat knife drawn when Nunchuk squared off against him.

 

The Cobra motor trooper used his enhanced reflexes effectively. He dodged a number of Nunchuk’s sword thrusts and nearly landed a slashing cut on the ninja’s face. That was until Budo dropped in behind the driver and buried his wakizashi into the base of his skull, right under the lip of his armored motorcycle helmet.

 

The APC commander saw his driver go down and moved quickly towards his armored vehicle. He produced a squeeze plunger from a cargo pocket, which looked very much like a detonator trigger for Claymore mines. When T’jbang intercepted the COILS trooper short of the APC, the Cobra squeezed hard on the plunger and clutched at his throat where the ninja drove the blade of his katana.

 

“Hat up!” Storm Shadow ordered, waving the ninjas over to the APC. As the team converged on the Cobra vehicle, they heard the soft squeak of greased metal joints moving inside. Everyone halted at a distance when Storm Shadow raised a fist in the air and pointed to his eyes.

 

The bright red glow of laser guidance sensors lit up the inside of the APC’s troop bay, as four metal heads popped up from inside. Before the COILS vehicle commander died, he had activated his carrier’s complement of Battle Android Troopers with the plunger he was carrying.

 

“Jesus!” Banzai exclaimed when one of the BATs reached for him and almost got a fistful of his combat gi. The ninja tried to slash blindly with his katana and missed.

 

“Firearms!” Storm Shadow yelled, unslinging his MP-5A SMG. The other ninjas followed suit, sidestepping and changing positions rapidly to confuse the heat and motion sensors of the pursuing androids. Once the BATs had spread out somewhat, the ninja began to whittle away at them.

 

Budo raised the firing unit of the RPG-7V in front of him for protection as a BAT closed in, reaching to wrap its metallic hands around his throat. The BAT grabbed onto the RPG-7 and snapped the firing unit in two, but the movement gave Budo enough time to roll out of danger.

 

He found himself behind the enemy android, but unable to give it an explosive farewell. But he thought quickly and reached out with the remaining RPG round, slipping the long tailpipe into an exposed joint in the BAT’s titanium endo-frame. He jammed the grenade into a convenient joint and rolled to safety, while T’Gin-Zu brought an automatic pistol to bear. T’Gin-Zu hit the PG-7V grenade and detonated it, blowing the BAT to pieces.

 

Nunchuk, Banzai and T’jbang kept the second BAT distracted as they moved back and forth in random directions. After a few seconds of the BAT twisting about and clenching its metal grippers at empty air, it reached towards its back where an imposing blade attachment hung.

 

Before the BAT could connect its hand to the long blade, Nunchuk wedged a live hand grenade into its shoulder joint and the three ninjas emptied a magazine’s worth of ammo each at the android’s partially armored body before the grenade blew its head and arm clean off.

 

Bushido and Budo paired off to tangle with the third BAT. As Budo moved side to side, firing his Type 88 rifle at the robot to keep its sensors occupied, Bushido snapped a grenade up from the corpse of one of the COILS troopers.

 

Bushido wedged the Russian stick-type grenade into the BAT’s waist assembly, sliding completely under its legs as he yanked the fuse cap. Both ninja dove for the drainage ditch when the grenade blasted the BAT in two, launching its upper half into the air. It landed a good thirty feet away with a soft thud.

 

Dojo had reached the driver’s compartment of the APC and started the vehicle up, waving for the rest of the ninjas to mount up quickly. Taking a quick glance at a small monitor that was linked to a camera at the vehicle’s rear, he spotted Storm Shadow grappling with the last BAT. The android was extremely powerful, and its mechanical gearing wouldn’t tire as quickly as Storm Shadow’s muscles.

 

There was only once chance to save his leader, and Dojo decided to make the most of it. He shifted the APC into reverse gear and backed up. Storm Shadow saw the vehicle moving and broke free of the BAT’s death grip, just in the nick of time.

 

The APC’s rear bumper caught the BAT from behind, and its head banged against the cast steel hull of the armored carrier. Dojo goosed the accelerator a touch more and then slammed on the brakes, throwing the BAT onto the pavement. Before the android could pick itself up, Dojo rolled the APC over it, crushing the head and sensor components under the heavy wheels.

 

“Are we clear?” Dojo asked, opening the driver’s hatch to the hissing sound of the APC’s air brakes discharging.

 

“Clear,” Storm Shadow said, giving his teammate a thumbs-up. “Let’s get into Baghdad.”

 

***

 

Duke’s Quarters

King Khalid Military City

0445 hours, local time

 

Scarlett awoke with a start from a fitful sleep, snapping upright in the small metal bed rack and finding herself completely alone in it. The memory of Crypto’s capture by the Cobra Vipers at Camp Al-Shu’a played back vividly in her dreams, and she cringed coldly at the thought of what both Crypto and Flint were enduring at the hands of Cobra’s best interrogators.

 

Duke had just emerged from the small lavatory and shower that his living space had been provided, with his midsection wrapped in an olive green terrycloth towel, when he noticed Scarlett sitting upright and rubbing her eyes with two rolled fists, as she clutched up the flowing cotton bed sheets with her elbows and held it tightly about her nude body.

 

“Did you have a bad dream, Shana?” Duke asked, glancing at the time on the digital alarm clock next to where Scarlett sat.

 

Scarlett ran her hand through the short front bangs of her shoulder-length red hair that hung over her eyes, brushing them out of the way. “Yeah, I did, Conrad. I was thinking about Flint and Crypto. We really should be planning an op to take off after them, or sending the force downtown and busting Baghdad wide open until they turn up.”

 

Duke struggled against his own conscience and desire to see his fellow Joes back, out of the enemy’s clutches. He also had to follow his orders and keep his big trap especially shut about the fact that General Tomahawk WAS planning a rescue operation for them. The general just didn’t want anyone outside of his trusted leadership circle to know about it yet.

 

Duke wanted so badly to console Scarlett with the news that the rescue op was on and that the Joe commanders were going to be briefed about it during the 0615 morning meeting with the general, just an hour and a half away. But Tomahawk’s orders for complete operational security and secrecy were explicit.

 

He would have a hard enough time explaining to Shana about why Snake-Eyes, Storm Shadow, and the rest of the ninja commandos of the Funny Platoon had all disappeared without a trace within the previous twenty-four hours. Of course, it was when they had been scheduled to depart on their part of the rescue mission.

 

Duke also had to keep Lady Jaye, still recovering in a hospital room, in the dark about the departure, since she would have insisted upon going with the ninjas to search for Flint. Both ladies crossed paths with the operational part of the Funny Platoon a lot since they worked with Chuckles on the information-gathering side of the Joes’ covert intelligence unit.

 

“Don’t get any ideas, Shana, my love,” Duke said after a momentary pause. “I have orders from the top brass to just wait for further orders. The best thing we all can do right now is to keep doing our jobs, and make sure Lady Jaye and Hide and Seek are kept up to date with any news the intelligence shop comes up with. If we get any information from over the line that’s truly reliable, I’m sure Tomahawk will act on it tout-de-suite. We just don’t know enough concerning their current whereabouts to come up with a plan that’ll work.”

 

Scarlett sighed and nodded her head in agreement. She reached for Duke’s waist as he walked past the bed and ended up just blowing him a kiss while he reached into a wall closet for a fresh set of desert camouflage-colored battle dress utilities.

 

“Get some more rest, babe,” Duke said with his back to Scarlett as he collected his gear for the day. “We can meet in the mess hall for breakfast after the oh-six-fifteen staff briefing with General Tomahawk and base reveille. How does oh-seven-thirty sound for chow?”

 

As Duke turned to lay his uniform out on the bed next to where Scarlett sat, she reached her palm out to gently brush Duke’s cheek, then pulled him close and kissed him warmly. “It’s a date, Conrad. And by the way, thanks for bending the rules and letting me stay the night with you after that really bad nightmare.”

 

“Hey, we have to keep up a healthy relationship, despite being in this damn war zone,” Duke said with a smile, dropping his towel to the floor before reaching for a pair of Army boxer shorts. “I know it’s been hard on you, what with witnessing Crypto’s capture firsthand.”

 

“Well, it may sound cold and heartless, but I’m glad it wasn’t you,” Scarlett replied, absently letting go of the bed sheet as her eyes admired the firm flesh of Duke’s muscular body.

 

“I wish it never happened at all,” Duke said, slipping into his undergarments. “But taking risks is why they pay us the big bucks.”

 

***

 

G.I. Joe Command-Operations Center

S-2 Section

0545 hours, local time

 

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Swansong said in greeting as General Tomahawk, Duke and Steeler walked into the intelligence shop’s small de-briefing room. The intelligence officer stood stiffly at attention, at the head of the meeting table while the other Joes took seats.

 

“General, Sir,” Swansong began, taking her own seat and pushing a stack of thick binders down the table. “I’m sorry to have asked you in so early, but I thought you really needed to be briefed in on this new data before your all-staff session.”

 

“Fire away, Swansong,” Tomahawk said, accepting a briefing book that Steeler had passed along.

 

“The cryptographic analysts have gone over the data feeds that the Crazy Horse team brought across the border, with the help of Mainframe, Daemon, Firewall and Sergeant Hacker lending their immense knowledge of computers and data networking. Dial-Tone and Dee-Jay helped us out with some of the telecommunications stuff, too.” Swansong flipped through her briefing book to the last page, which had a synopsis of all the intelligence estimates and analyses in the entire briefing. “The bottom line is that Camp Al-Shu’a is much more than we had originally thought.”

 

“Crypto’s initial assessment about the place being built up as a control and firing site for a new Supergun installation was dead right,” Swansong continued. “But we got a lot more of its purpose by studying the data dump that Sergeant Hacker did in the underground facility’s mainframe server room. The computer room in Camp Al-Shu’a was a data relay server, designed to be a nexus for several of Cobra’s overseas database feeds, as would be expected when Cobra needs to obtain and process command and control data.”

 

Swansong sipped from a Styrofoam cup of hot tea before proceeding with her explanation. “The odd thing about it is this server is sending data OUT of Iraq, not into the Baghdad Ministry of Information as one might think if Cobra has set up shop within the Iraqi government. A trickle of communications had been run through the server into routers within Baghdad, but it’s all been unsecured chatter, personal e-mail of no consequence, or non-encrypted stuff. I must say, the Techno-Vipers that built the Baghdad intranet know their business. There’s no way to trace the masked IP addresses or follow file tags to extrapolate a lead on the physical locations of their main command and control facilities, as opposed to the dummy routers and red herring terminals embedded in Iraq’s national communications networks.”

 

“What does it all mean?” Steeler began to ask, when Tomahawk raised a hand and silenced the armor officer.

 

“They’re establishing a phantom headquarters,” Tomahawk said. “One that Cobra Commander could evacuate to or place in command of his Cobra forces, which would be autonomous from their liaison with the Saddam Hussein government. Having the Supergun there is a perfect cover to move sufficient Cobra manpower and materials to garrison the facility, since Iraqi personnel are unable to engineer the weapons system. It also almost makes the potential for Cobra stationing WMD’s in-country for use against Iraq’s neighbors better than fifty-fifty.”

 

“Having considered all of that,” the general continued, “the site becomes a top priority for us to eliminate, and we have to erase it post haste. If CENTCOM, or worse, one of the Arabic news agencies, were to get a press release from Saddam about the camp and the Supergun as a means of saber rattling, it will cause a panic in Saudi Arabia and among the Central Command staff. Cobra could wipe out each and every SPECOPS mission CENTCOM would send downrange to investigate or assault the place, especially now that they’ve already been penetrated once by the Joes and security’s been clamped down. This place needs to go away quietly before it can be played as a bargaining chip by the enemy in the public eye.”

 

“You’ve hit the nail on the head, General,” Swansong said.

 

“Have these findings gone beyond your shop?” Tomahawk asked.

 

“We pulled the original KH-11 and KH-12-series surveillance satellite taskings that Crypto sidelined from the Office of Naval Intelligence and the National Reconnaissance Office,” Swansong reported, checking her notes carefully. “But both the ONI and NRO image streams have already been copied through the strategic intelligence pipelines to CENTCOM, which is standard operating procedure. However, unless someone knew exactly what the taskings were after, all an analyst would see at CENTCOM G-2 when they audit the requests would be a high-level series of shots of an oddly shaped construction site. We don’t think anyone in the normal channels caught a sequence of detail photos that our favorite snoop electronically pinched from a civilian SPOT satellite. Fortunately, the guys that run the SPOT systems were none the wiser.”

 

Major Levinson sipped once more at her steaming cup of herbal tea before continuing. “Now I know why you guys got your hands on the Lieutenant – his tricks are pure artwork, except for the fact that we had all the proof of his pilfering printed out in his Camp Al-Shu’a file down here in the shop.”

 

“Good,” Tomahawk said. “Now, I need a way to hit that place without ruffling CENTCOM’s feathers. We’re still officially under their command, and subject to the Theater Rules of Engagement, until a Presidential executive order or General Franks himself slips the leash and lets me go kick ass overtly. So far, all we’ve done has been defensive, or undercover and subject to “plausible deniability”, but if it gets out that we’ve got troops in enemy hands and we’re blowing up enemy bases without orders from on high, we won’t be free to act any further. CENTCOM is afraid of provoking a massive enemy reaction on the border that they can’t handle with the limited American, British and indigenous ground forces already deployed.”

 

“I think I have a way to sneak a bomb or two across the border,” Swansong said. “It’s going to take some doing, and we may have to bear the risk of drawing out a Cobra air attack on a strategic base. We have to provoke an enemy strike on Hafr-al-Batin.”

 

“You look like you already have an idea on how to accomplish that, right?” Tomahawk asked.

 

Swansong nodded, with a knowing smile. “If I can borrow Tailwind and Sky-Eye, you’ll have a very anonymous provocation that will give us the impetus we need to sneak a one-plane surgical strike over Baghdad to hit that camp.”

 

“Okay,” General Tomahawk said, as Steeler nodded and scribbled down some notes to take to the all-staff briefing that was assembling in the Command-Operations Center. “I’ll back you all the way. Just be sure you don’t fuck it up, or else you get to answer all the questions over at CENTCOM HQ.”

 

***

 

G.I. Joe Mess Hall

King Khalid Military City

0745 hours, local time

 

Roadblock and Dusty carried trays of hot food along the rows of long dining tables that filled the Joes' mess hall. As they walked around the facility to find two empty spots to sit in, they came across Hide and Seek sitting by herself. She wore a sad and lonely face, and stared quietly at her untouched chow.

 

"Do you mind if we commiserate with you, Specialist?" Dusty asked Hide and Seek, while flashing a disarming smile.

 

“Suit yourselves,” Paige replied, sadly toying with her food while Dusty and Roadblock slid into chairs of their own.

 

“You look like you just lost your dad or something,” Roadblock noted, holding his nose at the morning’s handiwork of Cookie, the dining facility’s chief cook, and his crew of assistants. “Phew! Damn! This ‘shit on a shingle’ smells more like shit every day!”

 

“Or something,” Hide and Seek replied to Roadblock’s observation, pushing the metal tray with her chow on it out to arm’s length. “I just got some bad news... Crypto’s in enemy hands, somewhere deep behind the lines.”

 

“You don’t say,” Dusty remarked with a forkful of creamed chipped beef filling his mouth and slurring his voice. “No one announced anything to the troops.” The desert trooper found talking with his mouth full just as hard to do as it had been hundreds of times before, and had to wipe away some white creamy runoff that found its way from his chin onto the sleeve of his desert camouflage utilities.

 

Roadblock passed over a paper napkin a moment too late for Dusty. “We don’t need to see your meal after it’s gone into your big fat mouth, Dusty,” he said.

 

Paige ignored the less than debonair behavior of the desert trooper and kept on with her explanation. “I was told to keep it quiet and not to go off half-cocked,” she said, taking a long swig from a Styrofoam coffee cup. “But I don’t know if they’re even planning a rescue.”

 

“That really sucks,” Dusty remarked, finally wiping his mouth clean with a paper napkin, like a normal person. “Someone had better be makin’ plans to go after Crypto, ‘cause we Joes don’t ever leave one of our own behind!”

 

“That’s right, Dusty. The Joes never leave their own behind.” Duke’s voice stood out powerfully over the din of the chattering troopers chowing down and preparing to report to their duty posts. “And you troopers should all know better than to be telling tales out of class. Right now, as hard as it may be to accept, there are Joes behind enemy lines, in captivity. But we don’t want other ears to gather that information, as it could damage our ability to conduct covert operations there.”

 

Dusty and Roadblock cringed slightly when they realized Duke had come up behind them to look in on Hide and Seek. They just sat still and kept quiet.

 

“The decision to go or not go with a rescue lies with the top brass, and they are making every effort to find the right way to do it,” Duke said. He looked down at Dusty and Roadblock, making eye contact with his steely blue eyes before adding, “I’d hate to have to put some of you on extra punishment duty or send you out with Beach Head on border security tours, just to dissuade unauthorized trips across the northern Saudi border.”

 

Duke stared right into the burning eyes of Hide and Seek, as he let the words sink in. “Do you Joes catch my drift?”

 

Roadblock nodded his head immediately in agreement. “Loud and clear, Top,” he said. The heavy machine gunner nudged Dusty gently in the ribs with his elbow, and the desert trooper also became quick to agree with Duke’s orders.

 

“Um- uh, yeah, Duke,” Dusty stammered, collecting his breakfast scraps and excusing himself from the table. Roadblock hastily took off on Dusty’s heels.

 

“Well, then. Since there’s suddenly room at this table, I think I am going to sit down for some chow,” Duke said in Hide and Seek’s direction, drawing a chair under himself, the metal legs making a grinding squeak on the rough cement floor. “How are you holding up over this business with Crypto, Specialist?”

 

“I’m doing as well as can be expected of me, Duke,” Hide and Seek replied. “At least, since I got the news from Swansong. And I won’t hide the fact that I think this heel dragging and staff double-talk is bullshit. I want in on the rescue!”

 

“Rescue?” Duke asked in his normal, evenly-measured, top kick’s voice. He was trying not to get the attention of any of the other Joes and Green Shirts in the room that were within earshot, so he made sure not to let his voice carry. “Who said anything about the Joes deploying to perform a fuckin’ rescue, Stevenson?”

 

“Don’t play me, Duke,” Hide and Seek replied quietly. “You’re not thinking about leaving Crypto behind in Baghdad. You know about his tangle with Cobra in the very same city almost nine years back.”

 

“Hey!” Duke warned, almost too loudly to be discreet. “You don’t know shit about Crypto, Baghdad, or nine years ago! That information’s fuckin’ classified! So don’t you breathe one damn word of any classified scuttlebutt about the Lieutenant around this here establishment!”

 

For a moment, Duke’s conscious mind rapidly scanned his memory, trying to remember if he even had high enough clearance to read Crypto’s personnel file regarding Baghdad and nine years ago. Chances were good that other than Crypto, the only folks that might know about any black operations he was involved in wore stars on their shoulders or worked for American agencies with three-letter initials. The naval analyst had most likely told Hide and Seek about his Baghdad ordeal at some point in their relationship and forgotten to confide in her the sensitive nature of the details.

 

The top kick leaned across the long, rectangular folding table and pointed his index finger right at Hide and Seek’s nose, motioning for her to lean in closer. He lowered his voice considerably before continuing.

 

“Lissen up, Specialist,” Duke said. “And you had better goddamn lissen good. Two other Joes are also down behind the lines, and we don’t want to risk any or all of their lives by putting on a half-assed rescue op without any viable intelligence. We’re taking steps to find out where Cobra or the Iraqis have Crypto and the others before we mount up and bring ‘em back. But we cannot risk loose lips spreading that shit around within this unit or to outsiders. And we won’t abide any unauthorized forays over the frontier until we have a definite target. There are too many critical SPECOPS missions going on under CENTCOM control that may get compromised if we go tripping the light fantastic and Cobra puts the whole Iraqi Army on full alert. We cannot afford to awaken the enemy’s entire war machine right now. So just keep your shit wired and stay cool.”

 

Hide and Seek’s face wrinkled as she became frustrated. “I’ll keep my cool, Duke, but not for long. Regardless of any personal feelings I have for Crypto, we shouldn’t leave those Joes behind. This team didn’t bring me on as a Search and Rescue specialist because I followed orders like a meek little recruit. I get the fucking job done, hands down!”

 

Duke felt badly for Hide and Seek as much as he felt for the others that knew of Crypto, Flint, and Green Shirt Sgt. Wiley’s capture. General Tomahawk had announced officially to his inner circle of staff and advisors that he had ordered the Funny Platoon over the border to locate the missing Joes and prepare the way for a larger rescue operation, but he also stressed that the leadership’s silence was golden.

 

Duke’s eyes picked out Scarlett walking into the mess hall with a tray of chow, so he stood up and gave Hide and Seek one final glance. With a casual wave, he excused himself, saying, “You’ll get your chance, Specialist Stevenson. You’ll get your chance. Just keep your mouth shut until then.”

 

***

 

G.I. Joe Operations Room

0800 hours, local time

 

“Beach Head reporting as ordered, Steeler,” announced the Army Ranger in a loud and authoritative voice as he stepped into the small office Steeler was occupying. The Sergeant-Major, neatly attired in a set of crisply-pressed desert battle dress, stood stiffly at attention and held a hand salute until Steeler, Major Ralph Pulaski, returned it and indicated for him to stand at ease.

 

When Beach Head took a seat across from the combination desk and computer workstation that Steeler shared with Major Storm in the operations center’s Spartan office space, the tank officer passed over a thin manila folder. “What’s this all about, Major?” the Joes’ resident operational security and combat training Sergeant-Major asked.

 

“Dust off your balaclava, Beach Head,” Steeler replied. “You’re going out into the field.” The officer opened the folder for Beach Head and fanned out a few reports that had been transmitted to the Command-Operations Room by teletype and FAX, via the Communications and Electronics section, also known as S-6. “Colonel Courage needs you to tie up a loose end. It has to do with the spy hunt you’ve been running. Three odd incidents happened, all yesterday, and one of them involved two of our Green Shirts right on base. The brass thinks the spy who replaced Glyph to get into our area figured out a way to exfiltrate and left a bloody trail behind. I want you to grab an armed detail and run these leads down. Send back a report if you uncover anything important. Thunderwing will hook you up with any vehicles you need.”

 

Beach Head reviewed the incident reports silently before nodding at Steeler. “Okay, Major. I’ll get it done.” He gathered up the folder and its contents and then got to his feet, saluting once more. “Is that all, sir?”

 

Steeler returned the salute and turned his attention to other things on his desk. “Be careful out there, Sergeant-Major. And, Beach Head... Have a good one.”

 

***

 

An hour later...

 

“Okay, you mud eaters!” Beach Head yelled to the assembled volunteers that formed his security team. “Why don’t you try to form an orderly rank for once in your lives? Snap to, ladies and worms!”

 

Eight Joes shuffled back and forth, dressing to the right and then closing up their ranks until the formation straightened up. Beach Head walked down the line and stared at the team members one by one. Crater, Switchblade, Barrel Roll, Sideways, Dusty, Crankcase, Hide and Seek, and Roadblock looked out into space, instead of looking at the Ranger, fearful of incurring his wrath as he inspected them.

 

The assembly appeared to the veteran Sergeant-Major like an ROTC cadet review, since the veterans of the group had wisely put on battle dress appropriate for patrolling, while the rawhides were attired in whatever starched-and-pressed utilities or unit-issue BDU’s they were accustomed to. Crater and Roadblock, the oldest hands among them in terms of combat experience, wore sets of well-used “chocolate chip” pattern desert camouflage utilities, which were a stark contrast in color to the latest standard-issue three-tone desert battle dress.

 

“Jesus Christ, look at this old shit you’re wearing,” Beach Head growled, flicking one of Roadblock’s collars at his cheek. “It’s a damn good thing that you troops have marketable combat skills for this man’s Army, because you downright suck wind when it comes to adhering to standards of dress!”

 

“And you,” he added, stopping in front of Crater, studying the former Delta Force commando’s chiseled facial features and stone-cold expression, his eyes practically burning through the lenses of Crater’s wrap-around Ray-Ban tactical sunglasses to see the intensity in Crater’s eyes. “When you were in Delta, you had no discipline at all. No standards of dress... no grooming... nuthin’. This ain’t your daddy’s Delta Force, my friend. I WILL make it my personal mission to aid you in adapting to MY unit!”

 

Beach Head reached for Crater’s sunglasses, at first appearing like he was going to deck the Sergeant 1st Class for some egregious violation, and nearly tore the glasses off his nose. Crater didn’t flinch when the Sergeant-Major stared him down eye-to-eye and then plunked the Ray-Bans awkwardly back onto his face with a mumbled comment of “fuckin’ hero.” Without further words, Beach Head turned and moved on. Crater allowed the glasses to fall to the sand at his feet rather than break his position of attention without permission to adjust himself.

 

The Sergeant-Major knew he wasn’t ruffling any feathers among the group – his constant ribbing about the Joes’ needing to be a by-the-book unit was essentially his job. They needed to know that their SNCO “mother hen” still cared about the unit’s welfare and combat readiness. He always knew by the veterans that they were all innate professionals, and each team member would undoubtedly be passing on the little tidbits of their collected battle experiences at every opportunity to the rawhides, the road trip notwithstanding.

 

It was a tenet of Murphy’s Law for Soldiers that “Every inspection-ready unit is unfit for combat, and every combat-ready unit is unfit for inspection.” Beach Head simply used every opportunity to vocally prove or disprove that point among his Joes.

 

Beach Head stopped pacing and bellowed at the group loudly enough for all of the assembled Joes to hear his briefing. “Alright. Since I don’t have the time to take you prissy ladies back to the barracks and dress you up right, we’ll just get down to business. We have a little investigation to follow up on concerning the Cobra penetration of our facility that the top brass has been suspecting. Part of the trip will involve a run to the front lines, which is why we’re going in force. We’ll use Hummers on base, and Thunderwing plans to hook us up with an M-2A3 Bradley fighting vehicle for the border run.”

 

Beach Head turned on his heel and resumed pacing along the rank of Joes. “I don’t yet know what to expect out there, especially down on the border trace, so stay alert and keep your weapons ready at all times. Crater and Roadblock will report to me as fire team leaders, and the rest of you WILL keep your shit wired and do what they tell you to do. Because it may cost you your worthless, scum-sucking life if you don’t.”

 

The Ranger motioned over to a pair of Green Shirt armorers, who were unpacking crates of M-4A1 carbines, M-203 grenade launchers, with over-stuffed haversacks of pre-loaded ammo magazines and 40mm grenade bandoleers to go with them. “Draw your weapons issue and pick up any gear you need from the barracks or supply twerps. I want to be rolling outta the Motor Pool by oh-nine-thirty! Load ‘em up, troopers! Let’s hat up and move ‘em out! MOVE YOUR ASSES, LADIES!”

 

***

 

Base Laundry, 209th (U. S. Army) Quartermaster Company

King Khalid Military City, Saudi Arabia

0945 hours, local time

 

Beach Head’s section, mounted in two utility Hummers drawn from Thunderwing’s motor pool, pulled up to the base laundry facility, which was situated in a squat, single-story gray building. As the vehicles pulled up to the parking area of the laundry, the Joes spotted what Beach Head had been sent to investigate.

 

An American-manufactured M-35A2 “deuce-and-a-half” cargo truck, whose bumper marks identified it as belonging to the Joe Team’s cover unit, was parked off to one side of the 209th Quartermaster Company’s vehicle area. The military police detachment assigned to the main portion of KKMC had cordoned off the area with wooden stakes and yellow plastic warning tape, and an armed guard stood nearby to keep watch.

 

“I reckon our Cobra spy was in quite a hurry,” Beach Head said in Sideways’ direction, as the Navy SEAL steered the Hummer off the road and into the parking area. “He sure left a dirty trail behind. Stop here and tell the others to hang around the vehicles. I’ll handle this myself.”

 

Most of the quartermaster personnel gave the cordoned vehicle a wide berth, and the single MP on guard instantly became alert and unslung his M-16A2 rifle when Beach Head dismounted from the HMMWV and strode over to the truck.

 

“Halt!” the guard ordered. “This is a crime scene. Advance and be recognized.”

 

Beach Head marched right up to the guard, reached out with a beefy hand to bat the barrel of the M-16 away in a safe direction and stared at the Army Specialist-4 through his balaclava-framed brown eyes. “I’m Sergeant Major Sneeden. This here is a truck that belongs to my unit. Do you care to tell me why it’s behind your pissin’ fence here?”

 

The military policeman gulped and rested the butt of his rifle in the sand next to his right boot. “Um- s- s- sorry, Sergeant Major. This vehicle was found parked at the laundry facility. When some quartermasters came to unload the laundry sacks, they found one man in the passenger’s seat with a broken neck, and another buried under the laundry covered in blood.” The MP raised a section of the caution tape so that Beach Head could enter the cordon. “The bodies are gone, Sergeant Major, but I can get the identities of the soldiers and all the photographs taken before the bodies were moved. Your CO will have to sign off before we release the vehicle, Sergeant Major.”

 

“Ah’ll just take a look around for now, while you get your supervisor to bring me everything you know about this, Specialist,” Beach Head said, using his dismissive and no-nonsense voice. He turned to face the specialist. “Are you still here? Get those boots moving, young blood!”

 

“Yes, Sergeant Major!” the MP said, gulping back some saliva in his mouth and running for a phone in the laundry building to call the provost marshal’s building.

 

Barrel Roll climbed out of the second HMMWV with Crankcase and the pair of Joes walked over to Beach Head, who was inspecting the inside of the cab. Barrel Roll leaned over the front bumper of the truck and studied the numbers on it.

 

“Didn’t I tell you lumps to stay with the vehicles?” Beach Head yelled from the cab. “Where did you learn how to obey orders? Boot camp?”

 

“I remember this truck, Beach Head,” Barrel Roll said. “I was on guard duty with Law at the main gate of our compound when we let this laundry run leave.”

 

Beach Head’s interest was piqued, and he dropped back onto the ground from the inside of the truck cab. “You saw this truck? Who was inside it when it left our facility? Come on, rawhide, ya’ll had best search the cobwebs of your rusty brain and give me some good information!”

 

“I can only suspect who was in the truck,” Barrel Roll said. “I could swear that the driver looked a lot like my older brother. I mean, he had some facial growth, and he would be a little older than I remember him. But I know my brother’s eyes, and I saw them in the driver’s head.”

 

“Big fuckin’ deal, Corporal Stall,” Beach Head swore. “What’s that have anything to do with these deaths?”

 

“My brother and I were both qualified applicants to the Joe Team,” Barrel Roll explained. “But I was the only one admitted. When my brother, Tom, was ordered back to Delta Force at Fort Bragg, he never reported there for duty. My parents in Cincinnati never heard from him. He just went black... completely underground, as it were.”

 

Beach Head motioned for the military policeman to hurry back to his post. “Specialist, where is the provost marshal?”

 

“One of the patrol lieutenants is on the way with the crime scene photos and personal effects of the two dead personnel, Sergeant Major,” the MP replied.

 

“Very well,” Beach Head replied. “Secure this vehicle until the lootenant arrives.” He turned quickly to face Barrel Roll. “And as for you, soldier. When the photos arrive, check them out, and try to recall if the driver was one of them. In the meantime, get Mainframe on the horn. Have him see if there’s anything in our Cobra intelligence database that matches the name of your older brother. Tell me everything he finds out!”

 

“Right, Sergeant Major,” Barrel Roll said, turning on his heel and running for the Hummers.

 

Beach Head surveyed the quartermaster company’s parking area and noticed that the laundry building was very close to a squat, sand-colored building with a sheet of plywood over the door that had the arched scroll logo of the 919th Transportation Movement Control Team painted on it. Remembering that one of the incident reports in his file had mentioned the 919th MCT, he decided to go and ask a few questions while waiting for the military police data to arrive.

 

***

 

Movement Management Office

919th (U. S. Army) Transportation Movement Control Team

1000 hours, local time

 

“Good morning, Sergeant Major,” a young African-American private first class said cheerfully from behind the reception desk inside the 919th MCT MMO. “Something I can do for you today?”

 

“Yeah, slick,” Beach Head said, looking around the neatly squared-away logistics office. “I’m following up on a report of one of your vehicles being boosted from this area. Can you tell me something about it?”

 

“Sure can, Sergeant Major,” the PFC said, pulling out the unit’s vehicle assignment logbook. When Beach Head stepped up to the reception desk the PFC gasped and stared admiringly for a second at the Ranger and Airborne tabs that were sewn prominently over the sergeant major’s fake unit patch. “Let me show you the logbook page from the other day when the vehicle went missing.”

 

The logbook was a required piece of management data for the MCT, which was responsible for dispatching supply convoys in and out of KKMC, as well as providing escorts and route survey elements to aid in keeping the flow of supplies away from hostile or enemy-threatened areas.

 

“Here’s the data, Sergeant Major,” the PFC said after a moment, pointing to three separate log entries that had been entered on the day of the Cobra spy’s escape. “The first entry was the original assignment order for our HMMWV number three-one-six-five. It was supposed to be escorting a convoy from KKMC to Dhahran out to the limit of the base’s outer security perimeter along with two other vehicles from our unit. This second log entry listed the vehicle as missing from our marshalling area, which happens to be right in front of this hooch. And, Sergeant Major, the third entry was chopped to us from the front lines by a sector command post manned by the 3rd Brigade of the 42nd Medium Division. It reports our missing vehicle as broken down on a border track northwest of KKMC and just off the Tapline Road, in the 3rd Brigade’s AOR.”

 

“The third report is at least two hours after the previous two log entries,” Beach Head noted out loud.

 

“We were surprised about the last entry, when the message was chopped to our dispatching sergeant from the lines,” the PFC said. “I was on duty yesterday when it came in. The full report came from an armor unit assigned to border patrol, requesting a light recovery tow from their brigade HQ’s main support area. Our vehicle had nothing wrong with it when it was prepped over here. And the only reason we got the message was because when the tanker on the front made the tow truck request, the theater-wide data link copied the notice to us, when it decoded the vehicle number and matched the registry to our unit.”

 

The PFC took a swig from a chilled plastic bottle of spring water and offered one to Beach Head, from a cooler behind the desk. “The dispatching sergeant tried to call Third Brigade’s main support area, and we were cut off by the Brigade S-4. The logistics officer told us that an attack was coming in from the enemy side of the border, but didn’t give any specifics. He only said that they weren’t sending anything out of the BSA because a mixed armor company was under heavy attack. You’ll have to ask them for the details.”

 

“The story fits what I’m investigating, but I’m not at liberty to repeat it to you, PFC,” Beach Head said. “Make me a copy of that page of the log and highlight the vehicle entries. Run me a copy of the full reports off the data link too. I need them for my file.”

 

The PFC walked the logbook over to a small military copier and did as Beach Head requested. “Sure thing, Sergeant Major,” he said, bringing back the copy and handing it over. “Hope you find the bozo who stole our wheels.”

 

“I hope so too, troop,” the Ranger said. “I’ve got a personal beef with the bastard.”

 

***

 

1020 hours, local time

 

“Sergeant Major!” Barrel Roll called out to Beach Head when he emerged from the 919th MCT building. The young Corporal was standing with a lieutenant from the American garrison’s Provost Marshal’s Office, which commanded the military police presence on base and conducted any security breach or criminal activity investigations around KKMC. The lieutenant and corporal were poring over the personal effects of Petty Officer Layton and Corporal Lavallette.

 

“See anything you remember, Corporal?” Beach Head asked, stopping to trade salutes with the MP Lieutenant and introduce himself.

 

“Affirmative, Sergeant Major,” Barrel Roll replied. “The guy I checked out behind the wheel of the truck was trying to look like this one... Corporal Lavallette. The general details were right, including the rough growth around the face. But the driver was taller than this ID card indicates, and as I told you before, some of the details weren’t the same. And I was within a few inches of his face when I inspected the vehicle orders and handed them back to him.”

 

“Then saddle up, soldier,” Beach Head instructed, motioning for Crankcase to get back behind the wheel of his HMMWV. “We have to report in to the CO and get clearance to leave the base. We’ll be going up to the lines after all.”

 

As the Joes scrambled to board their utility vehicles, Beach Head snatched the paperwork and personal effects the MP Lieutenant had brought with him from the Provost Marshal’s office. “Sorry, sir,” the Command Sergeant Major said. “The investigation is now classified. You don’t know anything about this paperwork, or any copies held at the PMO. Someone with a lot of brass on his shoulders will be sending a staff officer to secure any and all other material evidence, including the bodies and the vehicle. Please tell the Provost Marshal to be ready.”

 

Beach Head departed without trading another set of salutes with the officer. He shouted over to the vehicle drivers as he strode to his HMMWV, “Start ‘em up, ladies!” The lieutenant simply stood in the parking area, dumbfounded.

 

While Sideways and Crankcase pulled the Hummers out onto the road leading back to the Joes’ compound, Beach Head fired up a secure line on his TDC. “Steeler, this is Beach Head. So far, everything is confirmed. We need you to do a bit of house cleaning out here, because the Provost Marshal’s been involved. My detachment will be visiting the border. We’ll be inside the gate in ten mikes.”

 

***

 

  1. I. Joe Motor Pool



1045 hours, local time

 

Mainframe and Thunderwing were both standing outside the corrugated steel building that the motor pool personnel used as a vehicle repair workshop. The vehicle unit leader simply watched the Hummers’ approach with hands on hips, while the senior computer specialist fumbled through a short stack of computer printouts.

 

Beach Head didn’t wait for Sideways to apply the brakes on the lead HMMWV. He cranked open the passenger side door and leaped out onto the sand, kicking up a cloud of dust when he landed. He jogged over to Mainframe and Thunderwing, so that the three Joes could have a brief powwow.

 

“Hey! Be a little more careful there, Sergeant Major Twinkle Toes!” Thunderwing said with a smile. “Your driver almost turned you into a desert pancake!”

 

“He wouldn’t have dared to, El-Tee,” Beach Head replied. “He knows Stalker would’ve given him ten years of kitchen patrol if he so much as soiled my battle dress.” The Ranger turned to face Mainframe, with his gloved left hand outstretched. “Is that our data request, Mainframe?”

 

“Yeah, Beach Head,” Mainframe replied, passing along the stack of papers. “It isn’t much, considering I had only fifteen minutes or so to run the sweep. But I landed a few hits on the name you asked for.”

 

“Give me the skinny while we walk,” Beach Head said, as his detachment clustered around one of the unit’s Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles. Sideways and Crankcase were both shaking their heads when Thunder gave the two drivers a friendly wave from the left front of the BIFV, where the track’s steering gear was housed.

 

“The best I could do was have Sergeant Hacker run through our historical databases for any traffic that mentioned the name Thomas Stall,” Mainframe reported. “I took a peek through all the recent intelligence that we snatched from the Cobra camp, and the active SIGINT intercepts that we’d been collating from all the available sources.”

 

“What did you find out?” Beach Head asked.

 

“I have some dossier information from a Cobra intelligence agent stationed near Fort Bragg when the elder Stall was being considered for the Joes. Apparently, the dossier was incomplete, but the intercepts are in your stack. We also copied a message from a Cobra Island personnel database. It was a spreadsheet which had been routed into Baghdad through the computer router at Camp Al-Shu’a. We’re still verifying its accuracy, but the spreadsheet contained a line item that had Thomas Stall’s name, a codename of “Blackout”, and a classification of “tactical sniper”. Hopefully that will yield more results when I do a broad-based search.”

 

“Good work for such short notice,” Beach Head said, clapping the Marine computer specialist on the shoulder. The two non-commissioned officers discussed the issue of a Joe with a brother in Cobra for another few moments while Thunderwing ran ahead to see what the matter was with the Joes and why they weren’t mounting up in the BIFV.

 

“Do you think we could be compromised by a Joe who knows his brother is in with the enemy?” Mainframe asked, a look of concern tracing across his face. “I mean, the spy penetrated us while Barrel Roll was on base. Do you reckon he might have aided the enemy in some way?”

 

“I trust Barrel Roll,” Beach Head said, scowling at Mainframe for even insinuating that a fellow Joe might be corrupt. “Everyone that’s trained with him, and the Sky Patrol leadership has vouched for him time and again during the vetting process. Plus, Barrel Roll had been deployed twice since we arrived. Once to rescue the bomber crew that deployed the Hatchet element and once more bringing the Hatchet team home. He was in no position to aid and abet the activities of the man who took Glyph’s place. So forget you even thought about that idea. He’s as good a Joe as any of us.”

 

“You got it, Sergeant Major,” Mainframe said.

 

Beach Head turned his attention to the cluster of Joes around the M-2A3 fighting vehicle. “What the fuck is this? Didn’t I say we had to head for the border ASA-fuckin’-P? Why are you mud-eaters not mounted aboard my vehicle?”

 

“We have a problem, Beach Head,” Thunderwing said. “None of your volunteers are licensed to operate a tracked personnel carrier.”

 

“Shit,” Beach Head swore. “What else can you give us?”

 

“The good news is, I have a brand-new LAV-III Stryker assault vehicle, which both Sideways and Crankcase can handle,” Thunderwing reported. “The bad news is that it is light on the armor and carries no anti-tank capability other than a few Javelin tubes in the fighting compartment. It doesn’t offer the comparative punch of the M-2A3 should the shit hit the fan out there.”

 

“I don’t have time for reassignments,” Beach Head said. “Mount these ladies up in the Stryker. I’ve got a job to finish. Move ‘em out!”

 

***

 

Section Seven

Saddam Military Prison, Baghdad

1200 hours, local time

 

The Cobra guards hauled Flint roughly along the corridor to the fresh jail cells that had been set aside for his and Crypto’s confinement. When they reached the cell, an officer manning the post of chief jailer unlocked the door and swung the heavy iron bars aside.

 

Crypto had been faking sleep for the few moments between hearing the guards’ approach and when the Cobra troopers tossed Flint inside the cell and departed. When the corridor was empty once more, and the chief jailer’s snoring could be heard all the way down the hall, Crypto rolled out of his bed rack and moved slowly to the bars of his cell.

 

The naval officer peered carefully across the corridor at Flint, who was struggling to get himself seated upright. His face sported fresh welts from an obvious beating either ordered or delivered by the Baroness during her questioning session.

 

“Flint,” Crypto whispered, just loud enough to carry across to Flint’s cell. “Hey, teammate, are you still intact?”

 

“None the worse, Lieutenant,” Flint managed to say in between coughs and long breaths that took much effort to draw. “At least it’s been balled fists and leather whips, instead of that fuckin’ ordeal with the pit viper bites and snake venom poisoning.”

 

“Good,” Crypto replied, “... because we need to make a plan to get out of here. I can’t take much more of this constant physical abuse and I doubt you can either. We need to get motivated to escape.”

 

Flint’s mind revisited the images from the video monitor that the Baroness had been running in between questioning sessions. The one in which he saw Lady Jaye happily describing information to a pair of Cobra interrogators, and the “favors” she and Crypto received for their supposed cooperation. He looked through the dim light of the corridor lamps, which had been turned low for the night, and thought he could see that Crypto displayed no new signs of torture or beating on his flesh.

 

“What was your plan, Crypto?” Flint asked slowly, sitting up and craning his left ear to hear the naval analyst better. His right ear seemed to have a ringing in it that had begun when one of the Baroness’s troopers landed a good left cross to the side of his head several hours earlier.

 

“You tried to get loose before,” Crypto whispered as softly as he could. “Now it’s my turn to openly resist. I’ll try to bust out and somehow get into the nooks and crannies of this place. My TDC is still functional and I have been able to keep it hidden from them. If I can get close enough to the surface to hide it where the solar panel can charge the unit, I can transmit our location with the panic signaler back to KKMC.”

 

Crypto drew a breath before continuing. “Once that is accomplished, I’ll scrounge for some gear and weapons, then sneak back down here and bushwhack any guards in order to get you out. That way we can try to break out of here together.”

 

“What about Lady Jaye?” Flint asked insistently. “We’re not leaving her behind.”

 

Crypto’s eyes were filled with concern. He hadn’t seen or heard of Lady Jaye’s presence in Section Seven. No one among the Cobras had mentioned her. From what he knew of the mission plans that the Joes had launched, she was under the command of Falcon, and the whole ‘Hatchet’ mission team was already long gone from Baghdad. Then, his analytical mind kicked in. Perhaps the Cobras were trying to plant a story of Jaye’s capture in his mind, in order to get a recording of the two of them discussing any secret operations. There was likely a bug or tape recorder close by, somewhere that they wouldn’t be able to discover.

 

“I haven’t seen Lady Jaye,” Crypto lied, his eyes darting about to see if he could spot a bug or hidden microphone. “She hasn’t come downrange. I thought she was never called up for duty this time around.”

 

Flint didn’t think about the notion of lying or the potential for listening devices being within the sound of their voices. He thought Crypto was hiding the fact she was in the prison. Maybe the escape plan was a total ruse to bring more extensive harm to Flint because of his resistance to the Baroness’s questioning.

 

“Don’t feed me a line of bullshit, Crypto,” Flint snarled softly. “She’s here and we’re not gonna fuckin’ leave her behind. Is that clear, sailor?”

 

Flint brought a hand up to his face to wipe aside some saliva and blood that was wetting his chin. “Don’t lie to me about her not being here. She was here, with you. I saw a video of you both telling things to the Cobras...” The warrant officer coughed before finishing his statement. “I saw you two... being rewarded for it.”

 

Crypto was confused about the video Flint claimed to have seen. He tried to reach a hand outside the bars to gesture for Flint to lower his voice and calm down. “Flint. I’m serious,” the sailor said. “She’s not here, not that I know of anyway. I’ve never been in the same room with her since I was taken. And I’ve been resisting their interrogations too. But we need to get the hell out of here before one of us is broken or accidentally divulges something critical.”

 

Flint looked at Crypto incredulously, like he wanted to trust his comrade, but as if he also believed the images of the video. “What about Jaye?” he asked.

 

“If she’s here, we can look for her and bring her out too,” Crypto said. “But I wouldn’t bet the whole bank on it.”

 

“Don’t patronize me, you traitor!” Flint said angrily.

 

“Traitor?” Crypto replied, still in a whisper. “What the fuck do you mean by that?”

 

“You know exactly what I mean,” Flint replied. “Right now, the only way out is if we work together. So if you’re going to try to bust free, I’ll go along with you. But there will be a reckoning if I find out you’ve said anything dishonest to me. Anything, you hear?”

 

“Yeah, I hear you,” Crypto said with a sigh. He slipped back onto his bed rack and considered the possibility that the Baroness had already broken Flint and that he might be a liability in the escape attempt. After a few moments of restless planning, he finally closed his eyes and tried to catch a few winks.

 

***

 

Northern city limits, Baghdad

1230 hours, local time

 

Under the cover of a dilapidated warehouse, with half of its roof caved in, the dozen Joe ninjas of Funny Platoon sat around a small campfire, flanked by two enemy vehicles: a Cobra Ringneck APC and an Android Personnel Carrier. They had been in place since three minutes after sunrise. Since then, they had been passing a few nervous hours waiting for word from Headquarters that they could make contact with the CIA’s network of agents and informants inside the Iraqi capital, to find a lead that could bring them to Flint and Crypto.

 

Storm Shadow crouched over a CIA map of Baghdad that Snake Eyes had smuggled into the country with his battle gear. Between the two ninja leaders, they shook their heads at the daunting task of finding two needles in a seething haystack without help. General Tomahawk had warned the team that if CIA Agent Guilford couldn’t get through to her network of cells and mobilize them to lend a hand, the Funny Platoon would be on their own in locating where Cobra was holding Flint and Crypto. Both men were silently hoping for a miracle.

 

***

 

South of the Saudi-Iraqi border, Al-Muthanna Sector

1230 hours, local time

 

The rolling desert stretched out for miles around, and was an unbroken sandy brown color all the way. Under the heat of the midday sun, a sand-colored Military Police HMMWV armament carrier was followed down a border trace access road by Beach Head’s LAV-III wheeled carrier.

 

The tiny convoy stopped when they reached the pair of knocked-out Abrams tanks from Company Team “Tequila” and the open-topped HMMWV that was stolen from the 919th Movement Control Team. High atop the LAV-III, Beach Head cranked open the commander’s hatch and climbed onto the turret roof to have a look around. He raised a pair of dust goggles from his eyes and picked up a shielded pair of binoculars. Scanning the area in a complete circle, he decided that Cobra wasn’t up to anything that he should worry about.

 

“Okay, ladies, dismount and set security!” the Ranger bellowed. “Sideways and Crankcase, stay with the Stryker and keep her primed to move!”

 

The rear ramp of the LAV-III dropped to the desert floor with a soft thud, and Beach Head’s squad charged outside with weapons at the ready.

 

“Shee-it,” Roadblock groused when his boots hit the sand. “It’s gonna be another five-liter day! I’m gonna be pissin’ like a horse when we get to a latrine!” Although fresh water consumption rates were recommended by units in the field to be around two to three liters, for a weightlifter like Roadblock, lugging around a crew-served heavy machine gun in his bare hands tended to make him a voracious water drinker.

 

“You might be diggin’ a frickin’ hole and pissin’ in a fightin’ position, Roadblock!” Beach Head shouted from the LAV. “You and Crater had better get that perimeter set!”

 

“Yo, Joe,” Roadblock said halfheartedly, crouching behind a sand berm that faced towards the border. He scratched himself a shallow hole and unslung the large ammo pack for his M-214 mini gun from his back, resting it next to the high-powered weapon.

 

Between Crater and Roadblock, they had the dismounted Joes arrayed in a loose semi-circle oriented on the border, while the four MP’s that were escorting the Stryker and serving as local guides covered the rear. Meanwhile, inside the LAV-III turret, Sideways was cranking a wheel that elevated a special sensor pod that was mounted to a telescoping support pole.

 

Copied from a similar unit in service with the Canadian Army’s Cougar recon vehicles, the sensor pod had been modified by the Joes to have a duplicate set of antennas for their tactical and satellite communications, as well as their data link system. The pod itself contained an optical surveillance unit paired with Forward-Looking Infrared (FLIR) and a miniaturized AN/PPR-5 motion detecting battlefield radar emitter.

 

“Sensor pod is up and running!” Sideways called up to Beach Head. “I’m pullin’ down some snapshots and siting the positions of our opposition across the line!”

 

“Good deal,” Beach Head replied, climbing down into the turret to reach for his M-4A1 carbine and LBE gear. “I’m gonna have a look around these vehicles for a few. Be ready to give me a picture of our situation when I get back.”

 

“Right, Sergeant Major,” Sideways said, studying the digital display of a laptop computer that was wired into the sensor pod and communications systems. “I’ll have our tactical picture in a slack-dick jiffy.”

 

A few meters north of the Stryker APC, Hide and Seek shared a position with Switchblade. The two airborne-qualified Joes busied themselves staking out their fire zones with wooden popsicle sticks jammed into the loose surface sand around their fighting hole.

 

“Are you okay, Stevenson? Switchblade asked while he wiggled his elbows into the sand and checked his aim with the M-4A1 by sighting on fixed points in the distance. “You’ve been keeping to yourself more than usual.”

 

“I miss Crypto,” Hide and Seek replied quietly, trying not to reveal anything more than she had to. “But being out in the dust and grime is helping me take my mind off it.”

 

“How can you miss him?” Switchblade asked. “You’re on the same base. I know we’ve been training hard, and that I’ve been out in the shit twice already with Sky Patrol. But you got your assignment to our element in country. Haven’t you seen each other since we took up residence at KKMC?”

 

“You don’t get it,” Hide and Seek replied, charging her M-4A1 and scanning the desert in front of them with wary eyes. “You just don’t get it.”

 

“Well, educate me,” Switchblade said, in an annoyingly nosy sort of way.

 

“He’s across the line,” Hide and Seek blurted out accidentally. She clammed up as soon as she realized what she had said.

 

Switchblade put two and two together without Hide and Seek’s help. “He’s been captured, hasn’t he?” the paratrooper said. “He didn’t come back with Scarlett’s recon team?”

 

“You’re not supposed to know about other operations,” Hide and Seek said cautiously, trying to change the subject.

 

“We all boarded our slicks at the same time,” Switchblade stated. “Even though we were going to rescue Cutter and his Whale crew, we knew a second detachment under Flint was going after a recon team under Scarlett and Crypto. It was part of the usual pre-combat bullshitting.”

 

“Whatever, I guess,” Hide and Seek said.

 

“So, he’s out there, and you want to go after him,” Switchblade said. “Once a body knows the facts, it isn’t that hard to tell on your face.”

 

Hide and Seek turned and grabbed onto the lapel of Switchblade’s BDU jacket. “Don’t you fucking breathe a word of what you know,” she growled. “Duke told me to keep my mouth shut.”

 

“Hey!” Switchblade said with a shocked tone, but not loud enough to draw anyone else’s attention. “You don’t have to beat the crap out of me over it! I guess you’re mad because we’re not flying balls-to-the-wall out to Indian Country to get him back, right?”

 

Hide and Seek sighed and adjusted the plastic butt stock of her weapon where it was pressed into her armpit. “Yeah,” she said. “There are no rescue plans, no orders to train for a rescue, nothing. The head shed is way too quiet.”

 

“I don’t think General Tomahawk is gonna leave anyone behind the lines without kicking some Cobra butt to get them back,” Switchblade whispered. “He doesn’t strike me as a guy who lets ‘acceptable casualties’ go.”

 

“Well, I’m not feeling like I should trust the top level,” Hide and Seek said. “I mean, I trust Duke and Scarlett, and they’re telling me to hang tough. But other than the Intel spook Swansong, none of the officers in charge have come to talk to me about Crypto. Who knows what story Swansong was ordered to tell me?”

 

“Don’t get down on our officers, Stevenson,” Switchblade said. “They’re gonna do right by Crypto. There’s certainly more that they have to think about than getting him back. CENTCOM is still doggin’ us, exercising operational command. I heard Steeler telling Altitude about it.”

 

“Hey,” came a loud voice from behind them. Crater slid into the fighting hole between Hide and Seek and Switchblade. “Quit your jaw bonin’ and mind your sectors,” the ex-Delta commando said. He eyeballed the firing stakes the two Joes had set and clapped Switchblade on the shoulder.

 

“We’re cool, Crater,” Switchblade said in reply.

 

“Keep yer eyes open, in case this becomes a shit storm,” Crater said before rolling out of the hole and scooting back to his own position.

 

Beach Head paced in a long oval as he carefully studied the stolen HMMWV squad carrier whose bumper marks carried the 919th MCT unit code. The desert winds had blown a thin layer of sand over the open vehicle, but it didn’t deter Beach Head from conducting a visual search. He found the two spent AT-4 missile canisters that had been used against the burned-out Abrams tanks. They had been discarded close to the HMMWV but were still sticking out of the desert. Unfortunately, any spent brass from small arms fire was too small to still be exposed.

 

The Military Police had already removed the bodies that they could recover for burial, leaving the charred remains of Tequila One-Five’s driver behind. Beach Head took a moment to scan the shredded driver’s compartment of the Abrams, holding his nose at the decaying smell of the poor soul impaled inside. He moved to Tequila One-One and looked over the blast patterns around the turret ring, assessing correctly that the Cobra agent they were chasing was not only a tough customer, but he knew his shit when it came to weapons.

 

After looking over everything he could identify, making mental notes and taking an occasional digital photo to transmit back to base, Beach Head located the crate that contained Blackout’s escape glider. Rubbing his chin, the Ranger looked it over from a distance and then kicked at the sand around the metal box. It was fairly plain, and the metal sides were etched with long streaks from the force of the blowing sand. He eventually found a Cobra sigil painted in fading red paint, but couldn’t learn anything else about the container. As he walked away from the site, he walked right past a discarded stainless steel can labeled for commercial barbecue lighter fluid.

 

***

 

1300 hours, local time

 

“Okay, troopers!” the Ranger yelled. He waved at Crater and Roadblock to get their attention. “Pull in the pickets! Let’s have a bull session inside the Stryker! Move it!”

 

A few minutes later, the group of Joes were cooling their heels under the cover of a large, olive drab tarpaulin that was angled away from the Stryker’s rear ramp to form a lean-to. Sideways deposited a computer printout and the laptop with data from the Stryker’s sensor pod onto a wooden MRE crate.

 

“Gather ‘round, Joes,” Beach Head said. “Make sure to have a bottle or two of water while you’re in the shade, and drink slowly so you don’t keel over sick later.” He turned to Sideways and reached for the printout. “Let’s hear what you’ve learned, Sideways.”

 

“Okay, everyone,” Sideways said, clearing his throat. “Here’s the story. I took a sweep of the area with the sensor pod and downloaded some overhead imagery from the last Keyhole satellite pass that Mainframe made available back at HQ.”

 

He pointed at a tactical map of the area, indicating the squad’s current position, and traced out the border traces the Army had constructed for patrolling with a blue dry-erase marker. “This is where we are, and the routes the Army engineers carved out for the defensive troops to follow. To the north of us is a route junction where the remainder of company team Tequila was bushwhacked.”

 

Switching to a red marker, Sideways drew on the Iraq side of the map. “There are a couple of observation posts that periodically change positions,” he said. “Each one is usually a couple of Stinger jeeps and a UAZ-469 radio vehicle. We also have an enemy battalion fighting camp about two klicks in, to the northeast. They seem to be working much like we are on this side. They mount patrols in company and platoon strength, but keep most of their force inside the camp unless something big is going on.”

 

Sideways sipped at his canteen before producing a satellite photo of the camp’s center. “I can identify silhouettes of infantry fighting vehicles, a handful of Tango-seven-two tanks, and a mixed bag of the usual utility stuff and tracked equipment. There’s also a supply dump and an antenna farm within the camp perimeter, plus sandbagged mortar positions and a mobile battery of Maggot artillery pieces.”

 

Sideways laid down an overhead photo of the camp and circled a kidney-shaped area of flat ground north of the camp, where a number of dark shapes were lined up. “They also have an LZ for air support. When this photo pass went over, there were FANG II and FANG III mini-copters at the site. But the field is wide enough for big birds too.”

 

“Chances are, they have access to the same protective shit, like what we have up on the line,” Beach Head said, looking over a brief report from the closest friendly brigade’s headquarters that outlined the American unmanned defenses at the border. “Our guys have ADSID seismic sensors to pick up heavy vehicle and infantry movements, plus multiple layers of FASCAM and command-detonated minefields. I’m sure they’re also using physical obstacles such as berms and man-made wadis like they did in ninety-one. Sometimes our Keyhole cameras can’t make them out if the light isn’t right.”

 

Sideways nodded. “The Sergeant Major’s right as rain, people. Now, here’s the kicker.” He punched up some data from the day of the Cobra attack, and started a slow-motion replay of a feed from a KH-13 infrared surveillance satellite. “We were fortunate to have a Keyhole-thirteen pass feeding intel to CENTCOM when the Cobra raid kicked off.”

 

Sideways also punched up an overlay that looked like a circular radar screen. “This second display is a radar trace from a REMBASS sensor in the area, and they’re time-indexed to run in sync. Other than the firing Maggots, which sent a rolling barrage from north to south, nothing else moved. The ADSID line was never broken.”

 

“Now, that’s odd,” Beach Head said, looking around the squad to see heads nodding with understanding. “Why would they expend ammo to screw around with our side and not make an attempt to punch through the lines? The Cobras came in hardcore when they hit the Jersey Blues.”

 

“I’m going to fast forward to a later time hack,” Sideways said, cueing up the replay on the laptop. “However, I only wish that the Keyhole wasn’t focused on the enemy side of the border. This feed captured none of what went on right around us. We’re too far south of the aperture range.”

 

“Yeah, too bad,” Barrel Roll said quietly, wishing that had the grainy satellite images covered far enough, he would get a chance to somehow see if it was his estranged brother involved in the penetration.

 

“Okay, here we are,” Sideways continued. “A single chopper took off from the battalion CP as the enemy artillery barrage lifts. The high volume of smoke rounds was probably fired to mask the chopper’s crossing into our zone. After a few minutes of loiter time outside the aperture’s view, it returns to the camp and lands. Just before the Keyhole gets out of range, a second flying object goes from south to north and arrives at the camp.”

 

“A powered glider,” Roadblock suggested, with a nod of agreement from Barrel Roll. “That enemy chopper came across under cover, delivered a CLAW to the enemy agent, and returned while the Maggots were pounding the snuff outta our tankers. After the ruckus died down, our boy took off and sailed away clean.”

 

“It’s a God-damn Greek tragedy,” Crater added to the conversation, pounding a fist into his gloved hand. “The scumbag slipped right through our fingers.”

 

“Why don’t we go bring the sonufabitch back?” Hide and Seek suggested quietly. “Maybe we could haul his poisonous ass all the way to Baghdad and dump him at Saddam’s front door!”

 

The other Joes laughed halfheartedly at Hide and Seek’s suggestion, falling silent when they saw the determined look on her face.

 

“Just a moment, Hide and Seek,” Beach Head said, raising his hand to quiet the murmur of the other Joes talking about getting some payback. He wagged his index finger at her, beckoning her to follow him outside the lean-to. “Come outside and have a private talk with me, troop,” the Ranger said calmly. “The rest of you, stay in here and don’t get any fuckin’ ideas about crossing the border on our own.”

 

Once Hide and Seek and Beach Head were outside the lean-to, the Ranger pulled the flap of the tarpaulin down and stuck out a meaty finger, pointing right between SP-4 Stevenson’s eyes.

 

“Listen here,” Beach Head growled. “And don’t you open your fuckin’ trap. I talk and you listen. Duke told me about your little huff around base. And he told me that you might suggest an illegal crossing of the border. Now I don’t always see eye to eye with the powers-that-be, and I might even be tempted to look the other way. Just tell me one thing: how in the Hell did you figure you could get to Crypto, let alone find him in a city over two hundred miles from the front lines?”

 

“I say we go over the border and steal an enemy FANG II,” Hide and Seek insisted. “We can get it from that battalion forward command post our tactical recon satellite plotted a couple klicks in!” She pointed towards the imaginary Saudi-Iraqi border trace. “We could get two Joes all the way to Baghdad and find their biggest prison. Then, I’d land in the middle of the prison compound with guns blazing! It would give Crypto a fighting chance to escape if we blasted our way in to him!”

 

“And what the bloody blue blazes are two Joes and one lightly-armed hack chopper gonna do against a heavily fortified prison compound, Specialist?” Beach Head shouted in reply. “If we went strutting into the enemy camp and borrowed one of their tilt-rotors, all of Baghdad would be up in arms by the time we even tried to find a landing site by the prison! You’d be Swiss cheese more than ten miles away with the ring of air defenses the Cobras have lying out around that city! Never mind what would happen to the rest of your squad mates who would have to fight their way back over the border here before Cobra gets wise and peppers the American frontier defenses with more heavy artillery! How do you even know he’s still within the city limits?”

 

“Then I’ll go alone to find him,” Hide and Seek said, slinging her gear over one shoulder. “No one else cares enough to even wanna try. I don’t care what it takes to bring him home.”

 

Hide and Seek walked towards the front of the LAV-III, where a pair of lightweight dirt bikes had been strapped onto a carry rack. Normally used for scouting or dispatch riders, the Kawasaki bikes were assigned to Beach Head’s squad in case he wanted to have a look around without the Stryker in support. Hide and Seek lifted one of the bikes down from the rack and leaned it against the side of the LAV, turning to face Beach Head once more as she checked the bolt on her M-4 carbine.

 

“You had better stay in this fuckin’ laager, Specialist!” Beach Head yelled. His shouts drew the attention of the other Joes. They began to emerge from the lean-to despite the fact that Beach Head wanted to speak privately with Hide and Seek.

 

“I’m going to rescue a fellow Joe,” Hide and Seek shouted back, unafraid of Beach Head’s wrath. “You’re like the rest. You fuckin’ spout off about honor and never leaving a buddy behind! And here we are, with a buddy out there who needs help!” She hopped onto the dirt bike, rising up on the kick starter to drive her boot down and fire the cycle’s engine up.

 

Beach Head drew his pistol, not so much with the intent to do Hide and Seek any physical harm, but to simply deter her from leaving the squad’s laager and make sure she knew he was also serious. Some of the other Joes around them nervously reached for their side arms or rifles, unsure of what was about to happen between the Sergeant Major and the rescue specialist. “Stand down now, Specialist! That’s a fuckin’ order! You won’t last an hour out there on your own! This is for your own good! I don’t care who’s on the bad side of that line! I will bring you back in fuckin’ leg irons for insubordination!”

 

***

 

Cobra Fighting Camp

Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 104th Regiment

On the Saudi Arabia-Iraq border

1255 hours, local time

 

“Well, Blackout, that should do it,” the battalion’s Deputy Intelligence Officer, a Shadow-Viper, said. “It looks like your debriefing is concluded.” The officer folded shut and then sealed the thick interview package in which he had been taking notes and collecting various bits of detail from Blackout’s penetration to forward on to Baghdad. He then stopped the tape recording system that rested on the table between them. Gathering up all of the materials, the Shadow-Viper dropped them into a courier pouch and sealed it tightly for the trip to Cobra’s intelligence center in the outskirts of Baghdad.

 

The Shadow-Viper tapped his pen on the surface of the aluminum folding table while he studied Blackout, who sat patiently across from him. “It’s a shame that your choice of infiltration methods got you burned so quickly. And you certainly left a dirty trail behind. The Joe you replaced made it to the base, and you had to take out two Green Shirts and over a dozen American soldiers between KKMC and here. To boot, you forced us to launch a raid against the border to cover for your escape, which is surely going to draw the American brigade and its reinforcements south of us into a higher alert posture. Killing the enemy was the only redeeming part of the whole incident.”

 

Blackout ripped a pair of dust goggles from around his head and slammed them onto the table. He reached across to the Shadow-Viper and grabbed a fistful of the intelligence specialist’s uniform. An angry fire flashed in the sniper’s eyes. “Are you quite finished?” he growled, pulling the Shadow-Viper forward gruffly until the two men were face-to-face. “Do you think penetrating an enemy elite unit is easy? Between the planning, the execution, and defeating the Joes’ operational security, that penetration was like trying to thread a needle hidden in a haystack in the middle of a tornado! I accomplished as much as I could before I was made. I’d love to see the likes of you do any better, you snot-nosed prick!”

 

“Let go of me,” the Shadow-Viper exclaimed sharply. “I’ll have you up on charges for assaulting an officer.”

 

Blackout’s eyes thinned to dark slits. “Cobra Commander and the Baroness hand-picked me for their plans. They sent me into Indian Country, to risk my life finding the Joe Team’s base. And I was sent to spy on them undercover and then escape. You can take your rank and shove it up your lame ass, you smug bastard!”

 

Still holding onto the Shadow-Viper’s uniform with one hand, Blackout’s free hand shot around in a hard right cross, connecting with the officer’s jaw and sending him rolling sideways onto the floor of the tent. The soldier ended up crumpled and moaning in a heap, with the tubular aluminum chair he had been sitting on tangling up his legs.

 

“Guards!” the Shadow-Viper groaned weakly, trying to summon help from outside the tent. He reached for his sidearm, which was strapped to a shoulder holster under his left armpit. When his fingers found the rough plastic grip of his Glock 19, he was able to summon up a bit more courage. “Vipers! Get the hell in here and take this operative under arrest!”

 

Blackout was much faster than the Shadow-Viper and had the advantage of already being on his feet and able to maneuver. He leaped across the table and brought his black leather combat boot down onto the Shadow-Viper’s gun hand, crushing it into the dirt. He twisted his boot back and forth until the Cobra intelligence officer released the Glock with a yelp of pain.

 

By the time a pair of Viper infantrymen on camp patrol responded to the shouts coming out of the tent and stormed inside to investigate, Blackout had recovered the 9mm automatic from the ground. The sniper had the pistol barrel pressed hard against the Shadow-Viper’s forehead, aiming the weapon right between his eyes. He also had a loaded AKSU sub-machinegun trained in the Vipers’ direction with the safety off.

 

“Go ahead and try to be heroes,” Blackout said intensely. “I’m sanctioned by Cobra Commander to kill anything and anyone that gets in my way. Are you soldiers planning to get under foot?”

 

“Shoot him!” the Shadow-Viper yelled. “This fuckin’ guy is insane!”

 

The Vipers stood their ground, nervously watching Blackout as their twitching hands fumbled at the triggers of their readied assault rifles. Blackout clicked off the safety catch of the Glock 19 and his rapidly-shifting eyes bore down on the Vipers.

 

“You have one chance to stay out of this,” Blackout warned. “Take off now, and have the camp commander arrange for priority transport to Baghdad. You boys DON’T want to be involved in this disagreement, here.”

 

The Vipers hesitated for a few more heartbeats, studying the determined expression in Blackout’s face, and then retreated from the tent to search for the battalion’s Executive Officer, who was in charge of the day-to-day activities at the command post.

 

The Vipers’ departure let most of the wind out of the Shadow-Viper’s sails. He stuttered quietly, fearful that if he moved ever so slightly, Blackout would end it all for him right there. “Um- Black- Blackout, sir... I- um- didn’t mean what I said. I surely couldn’t do what you pulled off behind the enemy lines. Please don’t kill me...”

 

“Stop your whining, scumbag,” Blackout snarled, pulling back the trigger of the automatic and smiling evilly when the only sound that came from the pistol was a soft click when the hammer discharged. “It would usually help you to keep a magazine loaded in this sidearm, especially while you’re in the field.”

 

“But- but...” the officer stammered, crossing his eyes to focus on the business end of the weapon. “I did keep it loaded.”

 

Blackout held up the pistol’s full magazine and the first round that had been chambered in the officer’s weapon. Neither of the items had been close enough to the pistol to be useful, and the Shadow-Viper never saw Blackout remove them.

 

“It’s just one of my many tricks,” Blackout said. “But you seriously needed to know that I meant business. Don’t you _ever_ act like an asshole around me; I will _definitely_ shoot you next time.”

 

The Vipers returned to the tent with the camp’s commander, the 2nd Battalion XO. When they arrived, Blackout allowed the Shadow-Viper to get untangled and onto his feet, with the help of the pair of camp security troopers. All of the soldiers stood at attention, except for Blackout, when the Cobra Major motioned for them to stand easy.

 

“I hear that you’ve been giving my deputy intelligence officer some trouble, Blackout,” the Major said. “And that you’ve been menacing my troops with loaded firearms.”

 

“Your deputy intelligence officer’s mouth got him into a little trouble,” Blackout replied, re-loading the Glock and chambering its first round. He set the pistol back to safe and handed it, grip first, to the Major. “May we talk about priority transport to Baghdad? I need to report in to Cobra Commander and get my next assignment.”

 

“Not a problem, sir,” the Major said. “But if you can afford to wait a few moments, I have a little discipline problem to attend to.” The Major turned to face the Shadow-Viper, who was standing in a relaxed “at ease” position. He snapped to attention when the Major looked at him directly.

 

“Lieutenant,” the Major said, addressing the Shadow-Viper. “I know about your loose lips and arrogant attitude from around this camp. And I believe I gave you the strictest orders to simply complete the debriefing of this gentleman and allow him to go on his way.”

 

“But, sir,” the Shadow-Viper tried to explain, when the Major clicked off the Glock’s safety. He aimed the pistol and fired low, hitting the intelligence specialist in his left kneecap. The Shadow-Viper cried out in agony, and tried to drop to his good knee to clutch at the wound, but a nod from the Major got the two Vipers flanking him to reach under his arms and force him to remain upright.

 

“That was for your insubordination, you lousy asshole,” the Major said, shifting the weapon slightly to his left. He fired a second time, into the officer’s right kneecap, and then nodded for the Vipers to let him drop to the ground in pain. “And that one is because I take the conduct of my troops around the Cobra top echelon very seriously. Your mouth did get you into hot water this time, and although Blackout might have been merciful, I am most certainly not.”

 

The Major held the tent flap aside and cleared the way for Blackout to leave with a flourish of his right hand. He then turned to the Vipers to issue them another order. “Take this piece of trash over to the medical platoon’s dispensary tent. Remind the Medi-Vipers on duty that the painkillers are to be reserved for our combat casualties and not for the chronically stupid. When he’s been patched up, I’ll let the Battalion S-2 know he needs to promote a new assistant, and Captain De Champs with Delta Company will have another new private to man his suicide... er... mine clearance and scout platoon on the front lines. Get him outta my sight.”

 

***

 

Al-Muthanna Sector

South of the Saudi-Iraqi border trace

1305 hours, local time

 

“Dismount that bike, Specialist Stevenson!” Beach Head shouted, his automatic pistol aimed for Hide and Seek’s head. The barrel of his weapon shook with his hands as he held the gun up but fought against himself to suppress the urge to fire it. As much of a disciplinarian that he was, he couldn’t bring himself to shoot a fellow Joe without cause, even if it was to save her life.

 

Hide and Seek raised a fist in Beach Head’s direction, and flipped him off. She turned back to face the border and grabbed the dirt bike’s handlebars, kick-starting the motor with a sputtering buzz. She tore off into the desert, leaving a cloud of dust behind.

 

“God Dammit!” Beach Head swore, throwing his pistol at the ground and then bending over to pick it up again to stuff it into its holster. He whirled to face the other Joes and reached for the second dirt bike on its carry rack. “I’m going after her. Crater, you’re in charge of the squad. Pack up here and follow us.”

 

The Ranger mounted the bike and slung his M-4 carbine across his back. “All of you troopers are to lock and load for combat, but don’t continue across the border. If anything happens to stir up the enemy camp, you heroes pull the fuck back to the Tapline Road. DO NOT try to extract us; we’ll take our chances on our own.” He kick-started his motorcycle and took off to follow Hide and Seek’s trail.

 

***

 

Cobra Fighting Camp

Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 104th Regiment

1310 hours, local time

 

Blackout walked with the Battalion Executive Officer across the camp towards the helicopter landing field when a Tele-Viper ran from one of the command tents to catch up with the two men.

 

“Major Goran!” the Tele-Viper called, just before an air raid horn began to echo across the camp and troops started to emerge from tents to assemble in the common area. “Major! Observation Post sixteen, on the border, has picked up two small vehicles and a larger one approaching from the south! They’re not following the usual American patrol routes!”

 

Major Goran, the Battalion XO, motioned for the Tele-Viper to calm down and took the transcribed radio report out of his shaking hands. “Did it ever occur to you, trooper, that two light and one heavy vehicle hardly constitutes an invasion?”

 

The Tele-Viper tried to regain his composure, but was afraid that the Americans to the south were going to try what his unit had just done to get Blackout across the border. “Um- N-n-no, sir. I mean, sir, I know that three vehicles aren’t an invasion, but... What if they’re gonna paste us with artillery for what we did?”

 

“If that’s what you think, then go hide in a latrine hole with the shit and scorpions!” Major Goran yelled. He turned to face the growing crowd of Vipers and Iraqi soldiers that had formed close by. “The rest of you troopers, stand down unless you’re pulling patrol duty on the next shift!”

 

“We should identify them, Major,” Blackout said. “How about we do a deal? If I drive out to intercept these vehicles, will you scare me up a ride back to Baghdad?”

 

“If I can’t find a pilot, I’ll fly you myself,” Major Goran replied. “Take anything you need.”

 

Blackout drew a Dragunov SVD sniping rifle from the hands of a Viper and accepted three magazines of 7.65mm ammo for it. “Warm up that tilt-rotor for when I get back, Major,” he said before leaping behind the wheel of a Stinger jeep. With a squeal of tires, he drove back towards the border.

 

***

 

Beach Head gunned the accelerator on his dirt bike and aimed for the best possible path through the shifting sand. He could see the dust trail ahead of him that was being created by Hide and Seek’s motorcycle. The distance that separated the two Joes was diminishing, but the border had to be getting close as well.

 

“Stop, Specialist!” he yelled over the revving of his engine, hoping that Stevenson could hear him across the gap. “Stop that fuckin’ bike and freeze!”

 

Hide and Seek was doggedly moving straight on, and miraculously hadn’t hit any of the FASCAM mines scattered between the patrol road and the actual ‘no man’s land’ of the border. She didn’t care anymore – the only thing on her mind was that she had to do something for Crypto, even if it cost her own life.

 

Beach Head closed the gap rapidly, until he was only a few feet behind. With one last goose of the gas, he brought his bike abreast of hers and leaped in her direction. Their bodies connected, and Beach Head knocked Hide and Seek off balance, toppling them into the loose surface sand of the desert.

 

The riderless dirt bikes went on for about a hundred feet before one of them tripped a motion sensing anti-personnel mine. The motorcycles exploded, tumbling nose-over-tail in the air before crashing back to earth in a twisted heap of scrap metal and burning fuel.

 

Beach Head pressed Hide and Seek’s face solidly in the sand and shielded her with his body until the heat of the blast subsided. When he let her up for air, she was quietly sobbing to herself.

 

“I had to do something,” she whimpered softly. “No one would lift a finger for him. Baghdad is his personal Hell. He’d been there before. I had to help him.”

 

Beach Head looked towards the border and thought he could see a dark shape moving along the shimmering horizon. “I understand, Stevenson. More than you might realize. But right now, you need to come to your senses so we can get to our buddies and out of this hellhole. C’mon, troop! Snap out of it!”

 

***

 

Blackout angled his Stinger in the direction of where the forward observers had spotted the approaching American vehicles and wasn’t fazed when he heard the landmine go off, to his south and on the Saudi side of the frontier.

 

He brought the vehicle to a stop when he reached the end of the safe zone, just behind a tall earthen berm that contained the Iraqi minefields beyond. Scrambling on his belly up the slope of the berm, Blackout carried his sniping rifle in one hand and a folding shovel in the other. He had also taken a roll of tan burlap that was attached to one of the Stinger’s roll bars.

 

Upon reaching the summit of the berm, Blackout scraped himself a depression and then draped the burlap over his body and Dragunov to break up his silhouette. He poked the barrel of his weapon through the very top of the long, sandy mound and used the whole berm for stability.

 

A column of smoke rose from the landmine detonation. Blackout sighted in on it and used the spot as a reference point. When his mind calculated the range to the point, he noticed the scorched remains of the two Joe recon motorcycles. He calmly scanned a pattern with his eyes, checking every inch of ground through his sniper scope, until he spotted movement in the shadow of a sand dune.

 

It was very slight, perhaps an arm or leg, but when Blackout saw it, the movement drew his trained eye and it appeared larger than life. He made out two shapes in less than a heartbeat, but they were about nine hundred meters away. They were too far to identify any specific details. He did know for sure that he could hit them solidly with the Dragunov. So he let out his breath and settled the crosshairs of his scope on the shapes to wait for the right opportunity.

 

***

 

“Holy shit!” Crankcase exclaimed from the LAV-III driver’s station. “What the hell was that explosion up ahead?”

 

“Something tripped a Bouncing Betty,” Crater replied on the vehicle intercom. He trained his binoculars across the open space ahead of the Joe armored carrier and located the source of the blast. His jaw almost dropped to the steel floor of the turret basket when he eyeballed the wreckage of both dirt bikes around the scorched patch of sand.

 

“Stop here, Crankcase!” Crater yelled. “Mines ahead! Hit the fuckin’ brakes! Find me a full hull-down position and park this pig behind it!”

 

Crater ducked into the turret and pulled the commander’s hatch shut behind him. “Roadblock,” he called out into the troop compartment. “Beach Head and Hide and Seek must’ve clipped a mine together. We’re gonna cover you with the twenty-five millimeter and the sensor pod. I want you to take a fire team out to look for bodies and recover ‘em.”

 

“You got it, Crater,” Roadblock replied with a nod. “Dusty, Barrel Roll and Switchblade, you’re with me.”

 

Crankcase moved the LAV-III behind cover and Sideways erected the sensor pod just over the edge of the dune that shielded them from the enemy’s sight. Once the sensor unit was up, Crater took hold of the commander’s control handle for the General Electric 25mm “Bushmaster” main gun and slewed the turret from side to side until he was able to see the wreckage of the motorbikes. Using the gunner’s day sight, he watched Roadblock lead his fire team carefully out towards the minefield.

 

***

 

“Come on, girl,” Beach Head urged, as Hide and Seek curled up into a fetal position and kept sobbing softly. “Get back in your game. We hafta get the hell outta here. This is a shit storm waitin’ ta happen!”

 

The desert winds blew a hot stream of air and they whistled between the dunes, kicking up tiny dust devils around the two Joes.

 

Beach Head was about to get to his knees and prod Hide and Seek up onto hers when his ears caught the familiar sound of a single suppressed report. The bullet came close to cutting a bloody path through his lower thigh but bounced off the sand instead.

 

“Down!” the Ranger said, pushing Hide and Seek’s face into the sand once more. “Sniper!”

 

***

 

The two shapes had dropped behind enough cover to take them out of Blackout’s view. Exhaling slowly, the deadly killer cursed himself for miscalculating the wind speed across the dunes. He let the rifle go for a moment, resting the butt in an elbow hole that he had dug to make the sand as ergonomic as possible.

 

Blackout pulled out a tactical radio that was tuned in to the Headquarters Company’s command post frequency. “Blackout calling Krait Five Ops. I’ve identified the so-called invasion. It’s an American recon party. Two of their vehicles were DX’ed by one of their own mines. I haven’t seen the third vehicle. Perhaps it has gone to ground to see what happened to the others. I am engaging two scouts on the edge of the enemy minefield near their safe zone.”

 

***

 

Dusty was the point man for Roadblock’s fire team as it crept forward towards the motorcycles. “Did you hear that?” he asked excitedly, dropping to one knee and aiming his M-16 downrange. Not one to take chances, the desert trooper cranked open his M-203 grenade launcher and fed a live round into it.

 

“Yeah, I heard it,” Barrel Roll said, crawling forward the few feet he needed to cover to catch up to Dusty. The Sky Patrol shooter attached a long-range shooting scope onto the “Picatinny Rail” that was attached to the top of his carbine. The universal accessory mount was a special modification that Barrel Roll had made on his favorite M-4A1 to be more accurate in a gunfight.

 

Roadblock and Switchblade paired off about fifteen meters behind them and slid into cover. The heavy machine gunner propped his M-214 mini gun on a pile of sand and looked cautiously for an enemy silhouette.

 

“That was a Dragunov,” Barrel Roll whispered to Dusty. “A Russian sniping rifle. The round flew from right to left and was aimed to the west of the wreckage.” He adjusted the sights on his own scope and wiggled into a comfortable position behind a sand slope. “If the Cobra side fires again, I’m gonna try to spot the muzzle flash. Dusty, you stay still and look out for enemy movement.”

 

“Roadblock to Crater,” Roadblock whispered into his walkie-talkie. “Stryker, this is fire team. We heard sniper fire and Barrel Roll signaled a halt. We cannot advance to the wreckage to search for bodies. I can’t tell if Beach Head or Hide and Seek were thrown clear. Stand by for a vector to suppress the sniper if we spot him.”

 

***

 

As much as a patient hunter would when looking to bag the most valuable of prey, Blackout took his time wiggling back into his shooting position and resetting his rifle. His eyes refocused on the spot where he had last fired. But the shapes didn’t reappear.

 

He had time. He was patient. He figured that the Americans on the business end of his rifle were just scared teenagers. If they were too stupid to retreat, he’d single-handedly send them all to Hell.

 

***

 

Beach Head listened again, trying to pick up another rifle report. His breaths were heavy and echoed in his own ears. Hide and Seek had quieted down, but still seemed to be in some sort of panic or shock.

 

The sniper was smart, Beach Head estimated. He fired once to figure out a range to his target, and was probably waiting for Hide and Seek or himself to expose a little something in order to shoot it off.

 

The Ranger wondered where the rest of the squad was. The winds were too loud for him to hear the muffled sound of the LAV-III engine unless he was right on top of the stealthy reconnaissance vehicle. If Crater and Roadblock had heard the mine going off, they’d have taken to cover and probably dismounted to get a good idea of where they stood.

 

“B-b-Beach Head?” Hide and Seek said slowly, revealing her face from under her clasped hands. “Why did you come after me?”

 

“Because I won’t let you waste your life on a hopeless act,” the Ranger replied. “And I care about all the Joes. Just don’t you let word about that get out.”

 

“I promise,” Hide and Seek whispered.

 

“Can you move?” Beach Head asked. “We have a sniper out on the bad side of the line. I want to haul ass due south and hope to run into the Stryker.”

 

“The others came too?” Hide and Seek asked, shifting her limbs ever so slightly.

 

“Yeah.” Beach Head gave his rifle sling a gentle tug, gathering his carbine up under his chest until he felt the plastic grip in his palm. “They all wanted to follow you to Hell and back.”

 

***

 

 _There!_ Blackout thought excitedly, when he saw a black shape undulate ever so slightly. He slipped his finger into the trigger guard, inhaled, and held for a short pause.

 

When Blackout pursed his lips together and gently blew out the air in his lungs, his rifle barrel settled. The sniper gently massaged the trigger until his Dragunov jumped.

 

***

 

“Dusty, I have him!” Barrel Roll said quietly. “Muzzle flash at eleven o’clock, eleven hundred meters downrange. And– Oh, my God...”

 

“What is it?” Dusty asked, putting his shooting finger behind the M-203’s trigger.

 

“It’s my brother,” Barrel Roll whispered. “He’s working for the enemy.”

 

“How do you know?” Dusty asked. “I can’t see a fuckin’ thing out there.”

 

“I saw his face in the shadow of his cover,” Barrel Roll said. “I know that it’s Tom.”

 

“Doesn’t matter,” Dusty said. “We’re too far away to waste him. Neither of us can do better than three hundred meters with these pop guns.”

 

“What are you saying?” Barrel Roll asked. “I can’t waste my own brother!”

 

“Even if he’s shooting at your teammates?” Dusty asked, shifting in his spot.

 

“I- I- I don’t know,” Barrel Roll stammered hesitantly.

 

“Let’s bug out and get the Stryker,” Dusty said. “We’ll scout the wreckage in force. Your brother’ll have a tougher time wasting us with a sheet steel box and a big gun around us.”

 

***

 

Hide and Seek checked her carbine and nodded to Beach Head. “I’m ready now,” she whispered. “If we’re gonna run, I guess it’s now or never.”

 

“Agreed,” Beach Head replied. “Whether our guys are out there or not, the farther away we go, the harder it is for the sniper to hit us unless he moves into his own minefield.”

 

“Take off on three?” Stevenson asked.

 

“Yeah. On three,” Beach Head said.

 

Before the Ranger began to count out loud, Hide and Seek grabbed onto his arm and whispered “thank you”.

 

“One,” Beach Head whispered. “Two... Three!”

 

Both Joes rolled sideways and then leaped onto their feet, propelling themselves forward as fast as their legs could carry them. Bullets fired singly whizzed past their heads.

 

They started to run in a zigzag pattern to throw off the sniper’s aim, but the shots were getting steadily more accurate even as the gap between shooter and target opened.

 

***

 

“I see flashes on the enemy berm at twelve o’clock!” Sideways reported. “And there are two people running towards the trace at eleven o’clock!”

 

“I’ve got the shooter’s range,” Crater said, popping the safety off the Bushmaster’s trigger. He pulled hard on the control yoke and the 25mm cannon stirred to life, pumping rounds angrily through the barrel.

 

***

 

Loose particles of dust were kicked up when the 25mm rounds fell short of the berm that was providing Blackout his cover. Despite falling shy of their intended target, the heavy weapon fire drove Blackout off his perch. The sniper retreated to his Stinger jeep, where he paused to take stock.

 

He didn’t kill either of the two people that had bailed from the motorcycles. The enemy’s support vehicle had found him and was able to deliver suppressive fire on him without being exposed itself. At least he proved one thing. He stopped them from crossing the border on his own.

 

***

 

Dusty, Roadblock, Barrel Roll and Switchblade sprinted into the rear ramp of the LAV-III while it was on the move. They sat quietly, panting to catch their breaths as Crankcase steered towards the running shapes of Hide and Seek and Beach Head. Once they were safely aboard, the vehicle was aimed due south for the Tapline Road.

 

“Is everyone okay down there?” Crater asked after the rear ramp was locked in place.

 

“We’re good,” Beach Head replied, counting the raised thumbs from his teammates.

 

“So, what are we going to do about Hide and Seek?” Dusty asked Beach Head. “Are you gonna court martial her for pulling this stunt?”

 

“Fuck no,” the Ranger replied. “And I’m gonna explain losin’ the motorcycles as a scouting ride that got intercepted by that Cobra sniper. None of you meatheads are gonna say a fuckin’ word about Hide and Seek that could get her busted. She’s a good Joe, and had I been in her position, I might have gone over the border myself.”

 

“You had a chance,” Roadblock noted. “Why didn’t you go over with her?”

 

“Because I’m different,” Beach Head said. “I’m responsible for keeping you fools out of trouble. I earned that trust, so I can’t go running off half-cocked.”

 

Roadblock clapped Beach Head on his shoulder and smiled. “Aww, Sergeant Major. We love you too.”

 

Beach Head’s eyes darkened at the remark. He gazed in Hide and Seek’s direction and received a wink in return. “Shut up, Hinton,” the Ranger growled quietly. “Just shut up.”

 

***

 

Section Seven

Saddam Military Prison, Baghdad

2000 hours, local time

 

Flint tossed and turned in his bed rack, as images from the videos the Baroness had showed him stabbed at his heart and defied every iota of logic ingrained in his head about Crypto and Lady Jaye.

 

The fresh welts on his face from the Baroness’s liberal use of the backs of her leather gauntlets, and new cuts on his wrists and arms from being shackled to the ceiling of the interrogation room stung painfully every time he shifted positions. Hot poker burns inflicted by the Baroness during the previous interview sessions still felt like they were on fire whenever the sore flesh came in contact with the sweat-soaked, rancid BDU’s that he had worn for so many days straight.

 

Other than an occasional stripping and hosing down in his cell, Flint hadn’t seen a bath or shower since his capture, and he was almost sure that some of his untreated torture wounds were already infected. Even if he had been able to keep his body sanitary, wearing the same dingy clothes after each cleaning put all the germs and gunk right back onto him.

 

A noise and groan drew Flint’s attention to the cell block hallway, and the Warrant Officer pinched his eyes almost shut to fake sleep, while he listened for the approach of the security guards or chief jailer. All of the lights in the cell block had been turned down by the chief jailer for the night, and those above the hallways were off altogether.

 

Flint could barely see anything in the pale, yellow glow of his cell’s single light bulb. His eyes did lock onto a dark shape that moved silently across his field of vision. The shadowy figure pulled out a large key ring from a pocket, which looked like they belonged to the chief jailer, and nervously jingled it between clenched hands. The shadow stopped outside of Flint’s jail cell and then stopped moving altogether.

 

Although he was still suspicious of the intruder, Flint figured that the shadow was definitely not a Cobra trooper. If they had wanted him, the enemy guards would have brought all the cell block lights back up and marched in noisily as they had done before. They also knew exactly which cell Flint was housed in – the shadow appeared to be hunting around, searching. So he decided to take a chance that the person in the hallway might possibly be his ticket out of his hellhole, since Crypto had never returned.

 

“Pssst!” Flint hissed, rolling sideways and then sitting on the edge of his bed rack. “Pssst! Who’s out there?”

 

The shadow turned to look into the cell, where Flint’s features could only be made out as moving shadows, despite the presence of the small amount of light.

 

“Flint?” the shadow asked, hands jiggling the large key ring once more. The voice was scratchy, like the owner had been screaming a lot, but it was unmistakably feminine and familiar to the Warrant Officer.

 

“Is that you, Lady Jaye?” Flint asked with a cough. “Alison, I’m right over here.” He crawled to the cell door and reached through the bars to tug softly at a handful of rip-stop BDU fabric that belonged to her trouser leg. “I knew Crypto was lying to me when he said they didn’t have you.”

 

Flint’s eyes met Lady Jaye’s, and his face made an expression of immediate recognition. “Thank God I’ve found you,” Lady Jaye said, rifling through the jailer’s keys much more quickly as she searched for the master cell door key. “We’re going to get out of here, Dash. We’re going home together.”

 

“What about Crypto?” Flint asked. “Have you seen him? Where is he? And why would he lie to me about you being here?”

 

“Shh,” Jaye said, putting a finger to her lips. “There’s no time to explain. I don’t know where they took Crypto. All I heard was that he attempted a breakout, which was a shame since we had almost gotten them to trust us enough to enact our real escape plan. It doesn’t matter now. I’ll have you out in a jiffy.”

 

When Jaye found the master cell key, the lock turned with a satisfying soft click. She nudged the iron and steel-barred cell door open slowly, trying not to alert any nearby guards with the squeaking of the badly-maintained hinges. She also clicked on a small flashlight fitted with a red lens filter to help Flint see as he slipped into the hallway and gently pushed the door back into its closed and locked position.

 

The dim red glow of the flashlight played along Flint’s face, as Lady Jaye looked him over. He could see her face, the familiar features, her pouty red lips and short auburn hair and the curvature of her jaw, as her expression twisted into a look of concern that he had seen on her many times before. Jaye gingerly reached out and brushed the welts on Flint’s face, causing him to purse his lips together and wince.

 

“Ouch, Allie. Those still hurt,” Flint said in a hoarse whisper.

 

“I’m sorry, Dash,” Jaye replied, leaning close to give him a light kiss on the lips. “Come on, the guards don’t know I’ve escaped yet. We can make our way topside while the patrols are changing shift. No one will be watching the yard since the prison’s locked down for the night.”

 

“How do you know about the patrol rotations?” Flint asked suspiciously.

 

“I overheard my guards grousing about pulling a night shift,” Lady Jaye replied without missing a beat. “I just put two and two together.”

 

Jaye fished around in one of her BDU pockets, producing an automatic pistol and Flint’s TDC unit. “Here, take this pistol. It’s already locked and loaded. And I think this might be yours. I stole it from a table in the interrogation room after taking out the Vipers who were guarding me.”

 

Flint accepted the TDC unit and switched on its panic beacon, then glanced at its signal meter on the tiny liquid crystal display. “Well, I’ve turned it back on, but there’s no signal down here. We need to get topside to signal the Joes and let them home in on this communicator. By the way, what happened to yours?”

 

Lady Jaye looked back at Flint as they got to their feet and inched down the corridor towards the elevator lobby. “I must’ve lost it in the river when I was captured. By the time I was strip-searched here, it was gone.”

 

“Well,” Flint said, “Now we have two chances to get the Joes to home in on this place. Crypto had been concealing his from the enemy and they never found it. When he made his escape attempt, he said he was going to find a safe spot to hide his beacon and keep it going until a rescue party locked in on us.”

 

Flint and Lady Jaye stopped short of the elevator lobby, at the chief jailer’s desk. The jailer looked inanimate as he lay face down on the desk. Jaye grabbed the jailer’s chin and tossed aside his Cobra-issue helmet.

 

“Good. He’s still out,” she said, dropping the soldier’s chin onto the desk. “Let’s take the stairwell.” She reached for the stairwell’s door handle, and...

 

All the lights in the elevator lobby came up at once. A squad of armed Vipers ran into the lobby from the cell block opposite the one where Jaye had released Flint, followed closely by the Baroness.

 

Two Vipers each went for Flint and Lady Jaye. Jaye was moved quickly to the Baroness’s side and forced to kneel down on the stone floor. Flint’s detail worked quickly to empty his pockets and found the TDC. Just as they tried to remove it from his person, Flint lashed out angrily with all the strength he could muster, knocking the Vipers aside. He raised his pistol and aimed right for the Baroness.

 

“Let Lady Jaye go, you Cobra bitch!” Flint shouted, as the other Vipers raised their AK-74 assault rifles. “You let her go, and everyone else stands down, unless they want to see two holes in your head where your eyes used to be.”

 

“Go ahead and fire, Flint,” the Baroness replied with an evil laugh. She held a pistol up to Jaye’s head and allowed one of the Vipers to unbutton her BDU shirt, exposing her bare flesh underneath. A number of the Vipers made hungry snickers as the soldier who was undressing Jaye began to grope her indiscriminately. However, Lady Jaye didn’t flinch at all, keeping silent.

 

Flint thrust his pistol forward, staring down the iron sights at the bridge of the Baroness’s nose where he had the barrel zeroed, dead on. He tensed hard on his finger and pulled back the trigger.

 

CLICK!

 

Nothing.

 

Where was the shot?

 

The pistol was loaded...

 

The Vipers around Flint tackled him and brought him face first onto the ground, smashing his left cheek into the rough stone floor. Even with Flint struggling against them, four Vipers finally had him subdued and quickly chained his wrists and ankles together with steel cuffs and a restraint belt.

 

“Oh, Flint,” the Baroness said in a mockingly sweet voice. When he raised his chin to look in her direction, she brought her pistol up to Lady Jaye’s temple and fired once. Jaye didn’t even scream as she fell to her left and landed in a heap on the floor. The side of her face where she was hit was coated in a gooey red-brown substance that looked like flash-dried blood.

 

“NO!!!” Flint screamed. “You can rot in Hell, Baroness! I’ll never talk now!”

 

“We don’t need you to any longer, Flint,” the Baroness replied. “I’ll get what I want from Crypto. Lady Jaye softened him up enough for Lieutenant Deming to do her nastiest. He’s going to tell me everything I want to know.”

 

The Baroness waved in the direction of Flint’s cell block, where the chief jailer had gotten up from his desk and was twirling his key ring. The jailer grabbed Flint by the back of his collar and dragged him out of the lobby, saying, “That was a nice performance, huh, G. I. Joe scum? I could’ve won an Oscar.”

 

“You would’ve won the bullshit artist’s award, asshole,” Flint spat.

 

“If your girlfriend was more intelligent, she would’ve handed you a pistol that still had its bolt in the proper place,” the jailer retorted, dropping the automatic pistol’s bolt assembly into Flint’s lap before hauling him into the cell block hallway.

 

“Put him back into his cell and chain him to the bed rack,” the Baroness said. “Since you have nothing left to offer me, Flint, you will be left there to die.”

 

As Flint was being dragged back to his cell, screaming, the Baroness leaned over Lady Jaye’s motionless body and tapped her once on the forehead. Jaye shook her head and cautiously raised it before crawling up against the lobby wall.

 

“Dammit, Baroness, you could’ve held that blank pistol a bit farther away from my head before you squeezed off the round,” Jaye said quietly. “That damn shot’s still ringing in my ears.”

 

“It had to be convincing, my dear,” the Baroness replied, as she pulled the sides of Jaye’s BDU shirt together to cover her bared bosom underneath. “The small movie blood ampoule had to hit your face to open up and make the right spray pattern.”

 

Jaye reached up to her neck line and peeled away the rubber mask that had served her so well. “Boy, is Flint gonna be shocked when he sees “Lady Jaye” make a miraculous recovery in a fresh round of videos with Crypto, eh?” Lieutenant Deming asked. She peeled off a small micro-circuit board that had been attached to her throat under the mask, which had been electronically disguising her voice.

 

“That’s the intention,” the Baroness replied. “He may be tough, but I will break him for all the secrets the third in command of the Joes would be hiding.”

 

“We’re also going to need to get some radio direction-finding gear in here,” Deming said. “Crypto had a signaling device when he was brought here and might have set off a beacon that will lead the other Joes right to the prison. We might want to call for reinforcements to increase security, in case they send an assault force after these two.”

 

“I don’t want to alarm Cobra Commander with speculation,” Baroness said. “For now, the prison’s security is adequate to repel a rescue mission. But go ahead and detail a search team with signal detection gear and try to find Crypto’s transmitter, if he does have one in operation. You should have their cells searched as well, and relocate them to new ones so there’s no opportunity to hide anything.”

 

The Baroness smiled evilly as the thought of further torture ideas for Flint crossed her mind. “Why don’t you go get some sleep, Lieutenant?” she said. “You need to be ready to give Crypto his next round of questioning, bright and early tomorrow morning.”

 

***

 

King Khalid Military City

  1. S. NCO Club "Stripes and Rockers"



2100 hours, local time

Cigarette and stogie smoke filled one of the few locations on the sprawling military base where it was allowed indoors for military personnel, creating a hazy gray pall over the activity inside the non-commissioned officers' club. The capacious room was dark and recorded music blasted from a jukebox that had been rigged to a concert-sized amplifier and locally acquired ‘surround sound’ speaker system mounted in the corners of the space.

 

Army Sergeant Christine Jamison, the rawhide Joe code-named Tailwind, leaned her elbows on a large, rectangular folding table that she shared with at least a half dozen chattering and drinking enlisted personnel. They had come from all over the American part of the base, where a large number of active component units from the U.S. Army and Air Force were housed around the special compound belonging to the Joe Team.

 

***

 

The base's MWR committee, a volunteer group of soldiers and airmen from the resident units, did their best to scrape together enough materiel, funds and supplies to make the base clubs for enlisted, non-commissioned and commissioned personnel welcoming and comfortable places to relax and spend off-duty time. However, despite their best efforts, the NCO Club's bar area was still a crudely-assembled unit that some enterprising civil engineers from the U.S. Air Force's 919th RED HORSE Engineer Squadron were forced to assemble from excess sheet metal and lumber materials scrounged from their work projects at Hafr-al-Batin Air Base.

 

But because their belts were tight and war tensions were high, the troops had to make do with what they could beg, borrow or steal. And beg, borrow and steal they did. It had been a good source of laughter and unit jokes when service members frequenting the Stripes and Rockers Club found little scrawls in the metal surface of the bar with colorful phrases from other personnel that had been written at the various project sites the 919th scrounged from. Furthermore, the fact that the engineers used a special waffled steel material, normally issued to build emergency runways on unimproved land, to make decorative wainscoting for the club's walls, was good for a snicker or two from newcomers to the place.

 

It was rumored that an aircraft ordnance loader from the air base donated rejected fin assemblies from non-functional Mark 84 "Rockeye" cluster bombs, when the 919th put out a call for materials with which to set the club up. And every new visitor to the place searched high and low to find the fin assemblies with Sharpies in hand, to sign a raunchy nasty-gram to Saddam on them.

 

Despite the crudeness of the club's bar and the simple folding tables and chairs to accommodate the patrons of Stripes and Rockers, the American personnel had their place to trade pay vouchers and cash for liberal amounts of snack foods and a variety of beers and liquor. The stock of goodies on hand had been imported quietly into the strict Muslim country, by enterprising supply and logistics troops from every corner of the armed services. They even occasionally shared foreign alcoholic refreshments that had been secreted into Saudi Arabia by their British counterparts, who were given free reign to enjoy the bar when they were ‘in town’.

 

***

 

The American personnel clubs on KKMC operated in secret. In a sense at least, because they stayed open under the looming shadow of the Saudi Arabian religious police's repeated attempts to discourage alcohol consumption by foreign servicemen and women, even within the confines of their segregated compounds on bases the Saudi military shared with visiting forces.

 

The muttaween, agents of the Saudi government’s “Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice” also tended to cause trouble with female military personnel. Since the Saudi view of women's conduct varied sharply from the freedoms women enjoy in American or British society, including the right of women to serve in the military as equals to men, servicewomen were considered fair game for muttawa harassment.

 

Governing regulations for U.S. personnel in the Southwest Asian Theater, issued by CENTCOM to all soldiers, sailors and airmen in Saudi Arabia, did provide rules for female conduct outside of garrisons and base facilities. The main requirement was that personnel out of uniform must respect the local customs when moving among the civilians and the host country’s authorities.

 

But even CENTCOM had an unspoken rule that the muttaween weren't welcome when they tried to press the issue of enforcing their Islamic laws on personnel within secure, U.S. or U.K.-administered, military assembly areas.

 

As a way of providing lip service to the Saudi authorities, CENTCOM’s top echelon also mandated to the Morale, Welfare and Recreation committees that alcohol consumption was to be severely limited and that the Inspector General was to send officers around to make strict inspections.

 

In a statement of defiance to the muttaween (and the CENTCOM brass), the personnel took their “illegal culture” underground and made sure that any incidents in their clubs never drew the attention of roving muttaween members disguised as Saudi Army troops or the agents of the CENTCOM IG office.

 

***

 

A number of buck sergeants and staff sergeants traded admiring looks with Tailwind while they nursed their beers and ice-cold Coca-Colas. Some of the more adventurous ones had already been rebuffed by Sergeant Jamison when they made passes at her, including a few that sported gold wedding bands and had spouses back home.

 

Tailwind made it abundantly clear to the other non-coms that she wasn't a frequent patron to Stripes and Rockers as a means to meet men. For her, it was a place she could go to unwind and hide out in comfortable civilian clothes that would surely get her nabbed by the muttaween agents, if she roamed the streets and market bazaars of nearby Al-Batin in them.

 

She and the other female Joes often commiserated together over some drinks once a week to let off steam and avoid the downright evil stares from every Saudi uniformed soldier that crossed their paths on base. Compared to some of the looks from the locals, the occasional ogle from an American wasn't that bad.

 

On this particular evening, Tailwind was the first of the usual group to arrive. She knew that Cover Girl and Scarlett had planned to attend the weekly girl's night, and that Lady Jaye's presence was questionable since she was recently allowed out of the base hospital on restricted duty while her combat injuries healed. A number of the other rawhide Joe females would come and go as they needed, since it was always the newbies that drew the bullshit work details and boring “dog watch” shifts when they weren't on a mission.

 

Because the days were extremely hot and the nights extremely cold, Sergeant Jamison had wisely outfitted herself with a nice lined windbreaker for outside, but wore a comfortable pair of broken-in blue jeans and a tasteful blue cotton camisole with thin spaghetti straps that hung loosely over her shoulders.

 

After downing a couple of Cokes and finishing the single beer that she had ordered, Tailwind spotted Cover Girl, Scarlett and Lady Jaye worming their way through the crush of troops waiting at the bar for some refreshments.

 

Tailwind waved at Scarlett and Lady Jaye to get their attention just before shooing a couple of twenty-year-old sergeants from the 42nd Division Artillery away from the three folded-up chairs she had been saving for her companions. When the other female Joes arrived, a crush of men in Army and Air Force combat utilities pressed forward to offer to buy them drinks or to ask for a dance.

 

Lady Jaye was dressed in a crisp set of desert camouflage BDU’s, and still walked with a slight limp from where her bullet and shrapnel wounds were healing. Scarlett had tied her normally flowing red hair into a thin ponytail and was in a pair of jeans and olive green cotton tee shirt. She had entered wearing one of Duke’s old M-65 field jackets to stave off the slight chill of the early desert evening.

 

“It’s gotten worse in here with every incoming unit,” Tailwind remarked, helping to slide a chair under Lady Jaye when she sat and practically body-checking a couple of muscular bruisers from the 1st Marine Tank Battalion that had wanted to horn in. She let her dirty look burn into the Marines’ brains before they simply turned their backs and moved to the bar. “This is becoming a meat market, but not in a good sense. Every piece of meat in the room looks at us like hungry wolves.”

 

“I think that’s why a lot of the female Green Shirts have taken a pass on our weekly girl’s night out,” Scarlett added, glancing at the door while a rowdy bunch of Air Force NCO’s began to sing with the music that was blaring on the stereo.

 

Cover Girl pushed her way through the crowd, taking capped beer bottles right out of the hands of the younger non-coms, batting her eyelashes at them as if the beer was their price of admission for giving her a sly glance or sizing her up. None of the men complained. By the time Cover Girl had sat down with Tailwind, Lady Jaye and Scarlett, she had brought enough beer bottles to make it unnecessary for the women to visit the bar for a while.

 

“Thanks for buying the first round, Courtney,” Tailwind said with a laugh, as Cover Girl parceled out the beers that she had obtained from the crowd.

 

“Not a problem,” Cover Girl replied, popping the top off a beer bottle by raking it along the edge of their folding table. “I’ve needed a cold one to take the edge off.”

 

“You look like you’ve been roughed up a little, Courtney,” Scarlett said, gazing at the armored vehicle driver with her deep blue eyes. “Did something go wrong this week?”

 

“Sure did,” Cover Girl replied. “I had to go on a cake-walk parts pickup run to Dhahran because most of the guys were on standing orders to get the vehicles up and ready for action. Hot Seat, Wildcard or Long Range were going to volunteer to drive with me, but I ended up with...”

 

“No way,” Lady Jaye interrupted, nearly spitting out her slug of beer.

 

“Way,” Cover Girl said. “Thunderwing sent Clutch along instead, probably because the other guys were knee-deep in weapons system-specific work on some of the bigger equipment. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Old Grease-Boy pissed off the El-Tee somehow and Thunderwing wanted him outta his hair for a while.”

 

“I’m sure you just loved the Lieutenant’s organizational abilities then, huh,” Tailwind noted sarcastically, taking a draw from her bottle of Heineken.

 

“Luckily for me, he fell asleep in the back of the truck and left me alone,” Cover Girl said. “But the big problem was when we got to Dhahran and the Saudi checkpoint outside of the American logistics base there. Someone had posted a muttawa into the detachment, and he decided that I was in quite a pickle. I wasn’t veiled, I was by myself, or so they thought, AND driving a motor vehicle. Talk about getting in the shit for all or nothing.”

 

“Oh, crap,” the other Joes sighed as a group.

 

“They had me drive to the center of town, where the weekly dispensation was going on,” Cover Girl reported, wincing as she recalled the picture of witnessing Muslim justice. “In other words, it was public punishment day at Chop-Chop Square.”

 

“They made you watch?” Scarlett asked.

 

“They did,” Cover Girl said with a nod. “And it was the day when the muttaween were taking care of the cheaters and adulterers. Our guys are pretty fuckin’ lucky that they get kicked to the curb when they trifle with a woman.”

 

“Why’s that?” Tailwind asked, with a hint of naivete and interest in her voice.

 

“Adulterers get castrated in these here parts,” Cover Girl replied, making a chopping motion with her hand down the front of her body. “And it isn’t pretty either, since they lay the offender out in front of everyone, announce his crime and then do the deed with a ceremonial Muslim scimitar. Although I think the scimitar thing is just for show to scare Westerners, it’s still swift and decisive justice.”

 

“Eeew,” Tailwind said, turning slightly green before recovering herself. “That sucks.”

 

“The fun only began there,” Cover Girl said. “Clutch woke up while this was all going on. And he really caused a stir, especially because I wasn’t in the truck and there were two muttaween guys watching the group of foreign women they had corralled me with.”

 

“What happened?” Lady Jaye asked, propping herself up on her elbows to listen better.

 

“Clutch came storming out of the back of the truck and ran smack dab into the two muttaween handlers that were watching me,” Cover Girl said. “And although he was trying to be chivalrous in his own way, he ended up nearly picking a fight with them. He and I both got into it with the Saudis and they ended up on the ground with bloody noses. We took off rather hastily and managed to avoid further police discovery by riding into the logistics base at the tail end of a convoy. Clutch drove back by himself while I rode with the cargo, and every check point let him through, without even asking if he had a co-driver.”

 

“It really sucks how they treat women around here,” Scarlett mused. “But we obviously have to accept and respect it. Hopefully those muttaween didn’t get hold of your ID or traced the bumper numbers on the truck.”

 

“Oh, we were fully using our false identities,” Cover Girl reported. “The Saudi muttaween would have ended up being told to call Fort Belvoir in Virginia to trace the truck since the bumper codes were for the headquarters of U.S. Army Transportation Command. And CENTCOM would give them the runaround if they ever tried to trace our unit from the ID badges.”

 

As Cover Girl was telling her tale of the encounter with Dhahran’s religious police, Sky-Spy, Staff Sergeant Joe Dysart, entered the club with a pair of staff sergeants from the 75th Ranger Regiment. They were apparently good pals of his, since the three were laughing and joking together. When he spotted Tailwind in the club, the senior Sky Patrol UAV pilot approached the table where the ladies were clustered together.

 

“Hi, there,” Sky-Spy said. “I’m sorry to intrude.”

 

“Hello yourself, Staff Sergeant Dysart,” Tailwind replied. “Did you run into a couple old pals over there?”

 

“Sure did,” Sky-Spy reported. “They’re a couple of my former classmates from BNCOC that got their dream shot with the 75th Rangers. I haven’t seen them since they were rotated to The Mog in ninety-three.”

 

“The Mog?” Tailwind asked.

 

“Mogadishu,” Sky-Spy said. “Somalia. They almost participated in the infamous Bakara Market raid in December of ninety-three.” He sighed and glanced over his shoulder at his buddies. “Never mind; I’m getting under foot. I just need to remind you that we have orders for early tomorrow morning. So don’t get busted running around here in civvies, okay?”

 

“Sure, Staff Sergeant,” Tailwind replied. “Say, have you run into Switchblade lately?”

 

“Negative,” Sky-Spy said. “Switchblade and Barrel Roll weren’t in the platoon bay when Skydive gave me our orders for tomorrow. I think he said something about drawing security duty with Beach Head. If I’m not mistaken, Hide and Seek went too.”

 

“Hide and Seek has been keeping to herself a lot since the news,” Scarlett said over the din of the crowd, mentally catching herself a moment too late.

 

“News?” Cover Girl asked. “What news?”

 

Scarlett had to backpedal because Duke had expressly forbidden her and any other Joe that knew about Crypto and Flint’s capture to discuss it outside of secure areas. “Um- Err- I don’t know the news, but when she got it, she began keeping to herself all the time. All I’m saying is pulling duty off-base might give her a little spark, and going with Beach Head will surely give her the motivation to stay with her game.”

 

“Yeah, let’s hope so,” Cover Girl said, polishing off her beer.

 

Sky-Spy excused himself and returned to his Ranger buddies, and the overall noise level in the room jumped to a raucous cheer when a squad of five tan and brown DPM-clad troopers walked in, dirty and covered in layers of sweat-soaked dust.

 

“Oy! Pass over a round of your fine American spirits!” the dust-coated squad leader shouted. “We’re celebratin’ our bloke ‘ere, fer completin’ his trainin’. He’s a real bona fide glory hound now!”

 

“That’s a loud bunch,” Tailwind remarked quietly, cocking her head to indicate the five soldiers with their thick Welsh and Cockney accents.

 

“They look like British Special Air Service to me,” Scarlett said, recalling her intelligence briefing books on foreign Special Operations forces. “They use the Al-Batin training areas to prepare for behind-the-lines operations. CENTCOM uses them alongside our Long Range Recon Patrols, Special Forces Groups and Delta Force operators for deep reconnaissance and to hunt down Iraqi SCUD launch sites. Big Ben is a member of their Regiment, the 22nd SAS.”

 

Out of the five soldiers, one of them was a tall, lanky sort, with dark hair and calm brown eyes. He had a bushy moustache that needed trimming, and a degree of general growth on his face that was probably an attempt at getting into _mufti_ as per normal SAS behind-the-lines tactics.

 

In a way, despite outward appearances, he looked like he really didn’t belong in British kit or an SAS uniform; perhaps he was more suited to a three-piece from one of Saville Row’s best tailors. Lady Jaye stared at the soldier for a few moments before recognition set in.

 

“Excuse me a moment,” Jaye said, getting slowly to her feet. “I think I know one of those Brits.”

 

“Go get him, Tigress,” Cover Girl said with a laugh, reaching out to make sure Jaye could walk away from the table steadily. “Isn’t Flint gonna love knowing that you’re acquainted with boys from the other side of the pond?”

 

“Flint knows him too,” Lady Jaye replied, remembering back to a desert operation in Arizona when she and Flint, along with Cross Country and Dial Tone, first met the foreigner under quite different circumstances.

 

The crowd was even thicker going from the tables to the bar than it had been coming in, as Lady Jaye tried to maneuver through the carousing and chattering non-coms. She was sure that at least one had subtly groped her chest after adeptly switching hands as he held a beer bottle over the heads of the crowd. And there had undoubtedly been palms on her butt before she even made it halfway to her objective. Walking with healing bullet and shrapnel wounds made for more awkward movements and a frustrating lack of her usual agility. She didn’t even feel she had the strength to lash out at the anonymous interlopers that tried to cop a quick feel.

 

As Lady Jaye moved towards the SAS commandos, the other women returned to nursing their drinks and talking amongst themselves. She had almost gotten within reach of the Brit’s shoulder, almost close enough to tap the guy she thought she recognized. Then the wooden door that led outside the club was flung open with a crash, startling many of the revelers within a few feet of it.

 

Lady Jaye stopped short at the sight of two burly Saudi military policemen and a soldier who was apparently their commanding officer. Other soldiers and airmen simply glanced in their direction, hastily trying to cover open beer bottles with their BDU jackets. The activity in the NCO club stopped abruptly, when someone behind the bar reached the main power switch for the stereo system and broke the circuit, filling the room with silence.

 

The officer brushed his way past the MP’s and firmly shoved his way through the crowd, giving each of the assembled American servicemen and women a cautious glance. He took special care to study the faces of the women, but never spoke a word to them as his dark eyes searched for something about each one that would cause her to be recognized in his mind. By the way he carried himself, it was readily apparent to the mid-east veterans in the place that he wasn’t any plain-Jane Saudi officer. A muttawa had come into their house of liquor worship and wanted to shut them down.

 

Upon reaching one of the sturdier-looking tables, the officer climbed atop it and raised his hand to silence the buzz of mumbled conversations and curses among the American and British personnel.

 

“I must have your attention. Please,” he said, almost saying the final word as a sickening afterthought, in a tone that dripped with his disdain for the foreigners. “I am Lieutenant Fahdi al-Bashir of the Commission for the Preservation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. You commonly refer to us as Saudi Arabia’s religious police.”

 

Lieutenant al-Bashir lowered his hand and studied the faces in the crowd while they looked up at him questioningly. With a nod, he indicated that he wanted one of his assistants to flick on the normal lights in the space, and within moments, sterile white light bathed the club’s occupants.

 

People shaded their faces to help their eyes adjust to the sudden change in light level, and the lieutenant didn’t skip a beat. He spoke again, saying, “This assembly is illegal and immoral in Saudi Arabia. Wanton consumption of alcoholic beverages is a violation of the laws of Islam, because they taint the mind and draw the faith from the believers. You will all be allowed to depart this place after a brief search and recording of your name and unit. You must leave all alcohol and containers behind, for seizure and destruction by the muttaween. Please line up in an orderly fashion and exit this facility one by one to be recorded.”

 

A buzz rose from the crowd. But it wasn’t simply muffled questions or words of surprise shared from one NCO to the next. It was an angry and rebellious buzz, because someone dared to impose themselves upon their good, clean fun, and one of the few activities they could enjoy while holding the battle lines in the hot, stinking desert country.

 

“Fuck you and the camel you rode in on,” shouted a Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant defiantly from the back of the crowd. The expletive drew a cacophony of laughter from the handful of sailors and Marines present, as well as the irreverent SAS commandos. A number of the troops raised their clenched right fists into the air and stuck out their middle fingers at al-Bashir, giving him the “unofficial muttawa salute”.

 

“Please do not make this unpleasant,” Lieutenant al-Bashir shouted over the rising din, “...for you or for me.” He snapped his fingers at the two Royal Saudi MP’s and they un-holstered their 9mm service automatics, locking and loading them to punctuate al-Bashir’s resolve. The lieutenant alighted from the tabletop and pushed his way back to the door, accepting a clipboard and sheets of paper from one of the MP’s who was holding it for him. He posted two MP’s inside the exit, and then motioned to a jeep which was parked near the club. Two additional military policemen armed with World War II-vintage M-3 sub-machineguns and a junior-ranked muttawa walked over and saluted, awaiting their lieutenant’s orders.

 

***

 

“Do you think they’ve come because of the incident in Dhahran?” Tailwind asked Cover Girl softly. The women were still seated with Scarlett, keenly observing the goings-on and trying to pick Lady Jaye out of the crush of people clustered by the bar and entrance.

 

“I don’t know,” Cover Girl replied. “But I think we should get some utilities over those civvies of yours and try to find the back door.”

 

Tailwind nodded her agreement, scanning the nearby tables with her eyes. She spotted a desert camouflage BDU jacket hanging over the back of a chair that had been absently left behind by another non-com. She shrugged her own thin windbreaker around her body and then slipped to the end of the table and snatched up the battle dress jacket, draping it over her lap until she figured she would need it.

 

Meanwhile, closer to the entrance, Lady Jaye reached the tall SAS operator and tugged gently at the sleeve of his DPM smock, the British version of a desert camouflage uniform. Upon feeling the tug, the SAS man looked in her direction and his eyes flashed with immediate recognition.

 

“Lady Jaye,” the man whispered. “This is one helluva place to run into you again.”

 

“I knew it was you, Matt,” Lady Jaye replied, a smile spreading across her lips.

 

Matthew Burke, formerly an agent of the international spy apparatus called A.U.N.T.I.E. (Agency United to Neutralize Terrorism and International Espionage), had been a James Bond-like special agent charged with investigating incidents that eventually led him into a tangle with Cobra. He had come into contact with Lady Jaye and Flint during the pursuit of a nerve gas canister that organized crime elements were selling to Cobra.

 

“Well, time appears to be short, pretty lady,” Burke said. “I’m being inserted into Iraq tomorrow, and I don’t intend to be part of this Muslim kangaroo court. I can’t imagine these blokes would be very keen on letting any ladies just go walkin’ out of ‘ere either.”

 

“Nope,” Lady Jaye replied. “I’m sure they have ideas of their own for us women, too.”

 

“Right,” Burke said. “Let me tell my Sass buddies to make some noise, and we’ll take the back exit.”

 

“We need to gather up my teammates, Matt,” Jaye said, cocking her head towards Scarlett, Cover Girl and Tailwind. “And I noticed a handful of other female servicewomen here.”

 

“I daresay we can’t rally them all, Lady Jaye,” Burke said. “But hopefully the rest will get the same idea and bugger out behind us.”

 

“Alright,” Lady Jaye whispered. “I’ll move them to the back of the club. I saw a storage room hallway near the latrines. Don’t you go play hero on us, okay?”

 

“I had no intention to, pretty lady,” Burke said with a debonair smile. “But don’t wait for me. If I get caught, they’ll dump me at the Sass barracks and MI-6 will have my bollocks in a sling for missing my departure. It’s surely better than what the rag heads might do to you.”

 

“Got it,” Lady Jaye said, taking his hand into her grasp for a moment. “Thanks.”

 

***

 

Lieutenant al-Bashir had begun to filter the non-coms through the exit door, separating men from women and placing them all under guard after each one was frisked by the lieutenant’s assistant.

 

As the fire team of four SAS men approached the exit, they brandished beer bottles and began to scream. “No! We can’t do it! We’re afraid of being touched by other men!”

 

“Stand back and be silent!” Lieutenant al-Bashir shouted, fumbling for his service automatic. His assistant pushed a Marine sergeant out of the way and reached for his belt as well, drawing a pistol.

 

“No! We’re not gonna be touched by the hands of ruddy camel-jockeys and rag heads!” the SAS team yelled, stirring up the Americans once more.

 

“Shoot them if they don’t stop!” al-Bashir told his assistant.

 

“Oh, no. You’re not bustin’ caps on people who’re here to defend your raggedy-ass country,” the Marine who was pushed aside shouted. He reached for the barrel of the junior muttawa’s pistol and yanked it away, starting to grapple with the Saudi as both men fell to the sand.

 

The handful of Americans who had already been searched and segregated outside began swarming the Saudi MP’s and disarmed them rather quietly. Apparently, the regular soldiers had no interest in shooting anyone, despite the Lieutenant’s orders.

 

“Go. Get yourselves out of here. You don’t want to be associated with this little party,” Burke said to Lady Jaye, putting his body between her and the entrance where al-Bashir was moving to take on everyone clothed in DPM.

 

By the time Burke had blocked al-Bashir’s view of the Joe women, Scarlett had gotten hold of Lady Jaye’s elbow and urged her to move clear. “Come on,” the Joe counter-intelligence agent said quietly. “We’re going out the storeroom in the back.”

 

“Hold there, all of you!” al-Bashir yelled into the club, brandishing his pistol and walking in the direction of the Joe women’s escape route.

 

Burke stepped in front of al-Bashir and batted the pistol aside, noticing in the corner of his eye that his SAS comrades had the Saudi muttawa’s assistant under control. “Didn’t your mother teach you to be respectful to ladies?” the British agent rebuked softly.

 

“Stop those women!” al-Bashir yelled. “Stop them!”

 

“What women?” Burke asked innocently. “It appears that there are only men left in this establishment.” He didn’t flinch when Lt. Al-Bashir struck him in the face.

 

“I will arrest you for obstructing the enforcement of our laws!” al-Bashir threatened, reaching for a pair of handcuffs that hung on his belt.

 

“And you will have to contend with my friends,” Burke said, pointing behind the Saudi officer. With the other muttawa and the Saudi MP’s corralled, the men in Burke’s SAS training team could devote their full attention to al-Bashir.

 

Al-Bashir gulped when he heard the SAS soldiers cracking their knuckles and the sound of a glass beer bottle being broken against the bar.

 

“You don’t belong here,” Burke said. “Take your power-hungry ass someplace else.”

 

The SAS troopers escorted al-Bashir out of the club, amid the cheers of the other off-duty noncommissioned personnel. Without a word, the embarrassed officer was herded into his jeep with the other Saudi soldiers, and they drove away.

 

The Joe women hadn’t left the area like Burke had asked; instead, they came out from behind the club’s building when the coast was clear. Lady Jaye hobbled slowly back to Burke and gave him a hug of thanks.

 

“Still the pretty and classy lady, Lady Jaye?” Burke asked with a smile.

 

“I try,” Jaye replied. “Thanks again for covering us back there.”

 

“What else is an English gentleman to do?” Burke said, beaming when Jaye gave him an appreciative kiss on the cheek and then left with Scarlett, Tailwind and Cover Girl for the Joes’ compound.


	25. Penetration and Subterfuge II

“Cause and Effect”

Chapter Twenty

Penetration and Subterfuge II

 

***

 

Al-Batin Training Range

Saudi Arabia

29 July, 2002

0500 hours, local time

 

The sun was just beginning to climb over the horizon as an M-977A3 HEMTT tactical truck and its escorting M-966 HMMWV utility vehicle came to a stop in the abandoned training range. Without any sort of shouted commands, three Green Shirts piled out of the HEMTT and two more dismounted from the HMMWV, all toting M-16A2 assault rifles or the new M-29 “SABR” bullpup battle rifle. Four of the Green Shirts fanned out with their weapons to form a security perimeter, while the fifth, a sergeant from the U.S. Army’s Field Artillery corps, moved to stabilize the HEMTT with large, hydraulic support posts that extended from under the vehicle’s chassis.

 

When the vehicle was fully set in place, the artillery sergeant ran a heavy, shielded cable from a drum reel mounted under the M-977A3’s spacious crew cab over to an S-250 signals cabin that was bolted to the cargo deck of the Hummer. A large, multi-pronged electrical connector attached to the cable fit right into a special port that was built into the side of the thin-walled, steel S-250 shelter.

 

The M-977A3 ten-wheeled carrier had been modified by Thunder and the Joe Motor Pool mechanics to mount the traverse and erecting mechanisms of the M-270A2 HIMARS, High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. Originally designed to provide a five-ton truck-portable variant of the M-270A1 Multiple Launch Rocket System for National Guard medium-weight divisions and regular component Airborne and Light Infantry combat formations, the HIMARS could only carry and fire half of the tracked M-270A1’s twelve-round payload of 227mm munitions. It carried only one six-cell launcher box compared to the MLRS’s two.

 

Considering the differences between the basic HIMARS truck mount, the M-977A3 vehicle, and the special retrofit S-250 shelter for the launch control crew, the Joes had performed a technical miracle in getting the components together and working on extremely short notice. For the special task the HIMARS crew had been assigned, the normal six-cell launch box had been left at the ordnance dump and replaced with a single compact cell, which was normally used in the naval Mark 41 Vertical Launch System missile launchers aboard the _U.S.S. Flagg_.

 

The encapsulated Mark 41 cell contained a specially-modified BGM-109 Tomahawk tactical cruise missile, and the electronics whiz-kids among the Joes did a spectacular job figuring out the difference between the Army’s and the Navy’s wiring so that the S-250 control shelter could fire the Tomahawk from the ground.

 

The launcher cell, which was longer than the HIMARS magazine, had been bolted, welded and bungee-corded into the erector frame, so that it worked as it was supposed to. Flash had even commented that the Joes should get the completed work patented before the defense contractors back in the States got wind of their modification and tried to duplicate it.

 

The electronics specialists, with guidance from Sky-Spy and Tailwind, had also performed the task of modifying the BGM-109’s guidance system to accept commands from the Army’s Mil-Standard #1223 Serial Bus interface that was built into the S-250 shelter and the launch control equipment set up inside. They also fitted the special payload that Swansong helped the Sky Patrol UAV pilots assemble, onto the Tomahawk missile’s nose.

 

Inside the S-250 shelter, Sky-Spy and Tailwind, the rawhide Unmanned Aerial Vehicle pilots from the Joes’ Sky Patrol platoon, made final adjustments on their computerized control equipment. They busied themselves watching the displays light up with telemetry and diagnostics from the VLS missile box when the serial bus line was connected and the equipment inside the control vehicle began to exchange information with the missile on the HIMARS launcher.

 

Tailwind tossed a few locks of her blonde hair out of the way and tapped at her keyboard while watching the test equipment run patterns of multi-colored lines across her screen, that were matched by signals from the Tomahawk missile.

 

“Are we ready to get this show on the road, Sergeant Dysart?” Tailwind asked of Sky-Spy, Master Sergeant Thomas Dysart.

 

Dysart was paging through a launch checklist from the _U.S.S. Flagg_ that outlined the preflight steps for the Tomahawk cruise missile, and mentally checked off each item as he read it to himself. Satisfied that the missile was ready, he turned his thoughtful brown eyes and slim face to reply to Tailwind.

 

“We’re copasetic, Sergeant Jamison,” Dysart replied. “Finish up the GPS navigation programming and begin pre-launch warm up procedure. Let’s call the office and let the big boss know we’re ready to shoot.”

 

***

 

Section Seven

Saddam Military Prison, Baghdad

0500 hours, local time

 

The detail of Cobra guards under Lieutenant Deming's command stomped their way loudly along the corridor of the cell block which had been set aside to hold Crypto and Flint segregated from the rest of the prison population. Crypto had been dozing in an uncomfortable position on the ragged mattress in the corner of his prison cell. As the loud footfalls echoed through the hallway, he stirred awake, instantly becoming alert to his surroundings and steeling himself to execute his escape plan.

 

The footsteps stopped outside of Crypto's cell, and Lieutenant Deming pointed directly at him, her lips slowly spreading into an evil sneer. "Take him topside, troopers," she ordered, "... and guard him over by the edge of the exercise yard, near the equipment I showed you before. Don't let any of the other prisoners have contact with him."

 

"Right, ma'am," the soldiers replied in unison, as the chief jailer on duty unclipped the cell keys from his belt. Crypto acted as if he was still deeply sleeping when the chief jailer unlatched the cell door and waved Deming's three burly Desert Scorpions inside. The sailor felt a rough shove from one of the Desert Scorpions as a hand pressed against his right shoulder. He fought the urge to tense up, trying to keep up the appearance of being unconscious.

 

"Rise and shine, pretty boy," the Desert Scorpion urged, shoving Crypto once more and then tugging at his shoulder to roll him over. His two partners and the chief jailer snickered while Lieutenant Deming crossed her arms impatiently and flashed the soldiers her best "Get on with it" annoyed look.

 

The smug expression on the Desert Scorpion closest to Crypto changed to a look of pain when the sailor thrust his right elbow backward into the guard's solar plexus. Crypto rolled away from the bed rack and threw his arms around the neck of the doubled-over trooper, bringing his knee forward and catching the Cobra in the jaw. The blow knocked off the Desert Scorpion's headgear and snapped his head back with a spine-damaging crunch. Crypto reached for the trooper's leather shoulder holster and pulled at the snap-release closure as the Desert Scorpion fell towards the rough stone floor.

 

Because of the small size of the prison cell, the other Cobras had to crowd their way in through the barred door one by one. Crypto used the injured body of the first Desert Scorpion as a shield and bodily shoved the trooper towards the cell door. The momentum of the guard's body caught his two teammates and threw them off balance, forcing them to collapse against the cell wall. The injured guard's weight held the pair of troopers against the wall as all three scrambled over each other to get untangled and struggle back onto their feet.

 

As Lieutenant Deming angrily grabbed a handful of the chief jailer's uniform and shoved him into the cell, Crypto tried to work the slide of his purloined Browning Hi-Power 9mm automatic, locking and loading the pistol to fire. But before he could get the pistol positioned in the palm of his hand, the chief jailer had burst into the cell with his stun-stick drawn. The air was filled with electricity as the jailer's stun stick hummed and charged. Crypto lashed out with a single side snap-kick to the jailer's groin, which doubled the officer over and forced him backward into the corridor.

 

In the space of a scant few heartbeats, Crypto turned the tide of the fight in his favor. The three pinned and tangled guards finally began to get themselves sorted out, only to find themselves facing down Crypto and his loaded pistol at point-blank range.

 

CRACK-CRACK!

 

CRACK-CRACK!

 

CRACK-CRACK!

 

Although his hands shook somewhat, Crypto was able to put himself into an instinctive combat "auto-pilot", dropping into a Weaver shooting stance, aiming and firing the pistol without even thinking about his intended movements. He executed three perfect assassin-style "double tap" shots, which sprayed the blood and brain matter of the three Desert Scorpions all over the cell walls and floor. The soldiers' bodies shook in autonomic spasms while they quickly succumbed to death.

 

Lieutenant Deming reached for her pistol belt, hoping to have either the butt of her pistol or the handle of her stun stick meet her fingers. She found to her dismay that both weapons had been left topside when she was organizing her gear for Crypto's continued interrogations. The Crimson Guard officer wisely retreated towards the sub-level's elevator lobby in order to call for assistance, leaving the chief jailer to deal with Crypto.

 

The chief jailer had somehow released his stun stick when he fell, but was able to pull out a ceramic-composite truncheon. The weapon was shaped like a martial artist's tonfa or a cop's PR-24 nightstick. The jailer’s truncheon came out of its belt loop at the same time Crypto whirled around to face him with the 9mm Hi-Power raised to fire.

 

The chief jailer landed a blow to Crypto's left shoulder, throwing off the Joe's aim slightly as the loud echoing report of the pistol shot sent hot lead whizzing by the Cobra's face. The flying bullet sheared off a large chunk of the chief jailer's right ear, before chipping into the stone wall behind him.

 

"AARGGH!" the chief jailer screamed, clutching at his severed earlobe with his right hand and finding it covered in dark, crimson blood. He had no time to dwell on his wound, because Crypto bent into a crouch and body-checked the jailer into the nearest wall. Keeping his body pressed against the jailer, Crypto jammed the cold steel pistol barrel into the Cobra officer's abdomen and his angry hazel eyes stared coldly into the enemy officer's.

 

The chief jailer's eyes seemed to plead for mercy from Crypto, as the Joe officer fired once into the jailer's guts and then stepped back enough to let the officer drop to his knees. He then raised the pistol and stuck the barrel into the chief jailer's mouth, stifling his agonized moans of pain and forcing him to gag.

 

"You fucking Cobras have no sense of honor," Crypto snarled angrily. "You don't deserve to be put out of your misery. I should leave you here to bleed to death alongside those assholes." His finger tensed on the trigger and the Browning 9mm barked once with a muffled report, blasting the brains of the chief jailer out the back of his skull.

 

Lieutenant Deming rode the elevator up to the main level, from the underground cell blocks that comprised Section Seven. As soon as the elevator car doors opened, she stormed out and slapped a large red button on the closest alarm panel, alerting all of the Vipers guarding the prison compound of trouble brewing.

 

***

 

0510 hours, local time

 

The Baroness was about to brush the red-hot tip of a glowing cast-iron fireplace poker against Flint's bare chest, as he hung naked from the manacles attached to the interrogation room's ceiling, when the alarm klaxons blared through the subterranean corridors of Section Seven.

 

"Lock down," Lieutenant Deming's voice said, echoing through the public address system's speakers throughout the prison. She was speaking into the PA system from her position topside. "A Joe prisoner has escaped Section Seven security. Lock down all sections and have all off-duty guards report to Security Control for assignment to sweeper teams."

 

"Well, there you go," Flint said with a sneer, gritting his teeth at the pain of the poker searing his flesh with every failure to answer one of the Baroness's questions. "That bitch protégé of yours screwed the pooch, Baroness. Crypto's slipped from your slimy grasp. You might have me now, but Crypto will get the word out. The Joes will know about this place and spring us out!"

 

"So," the Baroness said slyly. "There are other Joes in-theater besides you." The Cobra intelligence officer dabbed at beads of sweat that had formed on Flint's brow with a linen cloth, looking into his eyes and reading the pain she had inflicted upon him.

 

"You've made your first mistake, Flint. If your friend gets topside, he'll never reach a communications facility or breach the perimeter walls before we locate him. All of the outer walls, prison entrances and guard towers are manned by Viper patrols or specialized security teams of SAW-Vipers and Desert Scorpions. Not to mention the guard dog squads and sweeper sections of off-duty troopers that mobilize when the security alarms sound. If Crypto resists, he will surely die."

 

The Baroness turned and walked a circle around Flint, having reheated the glowing tip of the poker from a white-hot fire that had been built in a 55-gallon drum of fuel oil. "My troops will stop Crypto, and he will pay the price for resisting. I'm surprised that you didn't know that he planned on trying to escape. Considering the video I showed you, I'm even more surprised that you believe Crypto will come back for you. Why haven't you spoken up and served him up to me as a traitor to save yourself?"

 

Baroness looked once more into Flint's eyes, and he pinched them shut, trying to avert his gaze from her. He didn't want to let her read his expressions - to let her know that she was getting to him and that he wasn't sure he could trust Crypto.

 

"Crypto was with Lady Jaye," the Baroness continued. "And both of them volunteered information to us. You surprise and astound me, Flint. You're unwilling to say a thing, even when your most intimate trusts have been violated by people close to you."

 

"I still think you've played me like a fool, Baroness," Flint argued, his voice wavering. "And I don't buy your cock and bull stories. Crypto and Lady Jaye would never betray me or the Joes."

 

"You will never get to know the truth," the Baroness replied. "Whether Crypto lives or dies, or whatever happens to Lady Jaye, no one will come back to find you. You will die here, all alone, if you resist cooperating with us." She drew the hot poker down Flint's back, creating a long line of burned, red flesh while Flint screamed out in agony and tried to twist his body to avoid being burned more.

 

"Fuck you, Baroness," Flint said with a gasp of breath, spitting angrily and wincing at the burning sensations coursing over his flesh. "Kill me or torture me, but you'll get nothing from me, ever!"

 

***

 

The single elevator had descended automatically to the very lowest sublevel and stopped when Lieutenant Deming sounded the lock-down. When Crypto tried to use the call button on his level to summon the elevator, nothing happened. Taking a moment to peek into the access stairwell that led up to the topside lobby, Crypto decided that the route was too cramped an area to effectively fight his way out from. He surmised that Deming’s nastiest Vipers would guard the stairwell at the very top. And inevitably, they would have more automatic weapons than he could shake his paltry little 9mm pistol at.

 

Crypto paused to think about his situation, keeping a wary ear out for sounds of any other guard patrols that might be lurking around the sub-level, if there had been any others detailed to the area. He noticed a fire axe that was attached to the wall near the elevator. Slowly forming an idea in his head about how to approach getting to the surface, he grabbed the large, orange tool and pocketed his automatic pistol.

 

Crypto returned to the elevator shaft and used the head of the axe to pry the shaft’s doors apart. He silently slipped past them and established a foothold on a narrow lip of concrete that protruded out around the perimeter of the elevator shaft, leaving the fire axe jammed in the elevator doors to allow light to filter in.

 

When a foot patrol of Vipers assigned to the sub-level had discovered the bodies of the chief jailer and the dead Desert Scorpions in Crypto’s cell, they instantly followed procedures and rallied in the elevator lobby to secure the sub-level. By the time they arrived at the lobby, Crypto had already reached out into the elevator shaft and shimmied down the main support cable to the roof of the elevator car two levels below. The sailor kept his stolen fire axe handy and allowed the lobby doors to slide shut behind him under their own power.

 

With all the sub-level lobby doors closed, the elevator shaft was nearly a pitch black. The only illumination came from the dull glow of tiny red emergency bulbs that burned at each sub-level. Some standard light bulbs in sockets shined at the very top of the shaft where a maintenance catwalk, made of metal grating and steel supports, stretched across the opening and past the elevator’s air ventilation ducts. Despite such minimal light, Crypto was able to see all that he needed, in order to formulate how he was going to proceed.

 

Unlike more contemporary elevator systems, which had multiple pulleys and cables for safety and redundant shaft brakes, the elevator car in Section Seven was an older design. The system relied upon a single main cable that ran up to the machinery and a large pulley wheel that lowered a counterweight in an adjacent shaft to provide a smooth ride for the passengers.

 

The main support cable was composed of numerous smaller steel strands that were twisted and wound together, then shaped into a loop which fit through a steel lock plate shaped like a half ring whose ends were molded into flat metal plates with thick corners for attaching to a frame. The lock plate was then welded to the frame of the actual elevator car. Mechanical arms and actuators stuck out at each sub-level, to help open the lobby doors only when the car was present.

 

At the top of the elevator shaft, the maintenance catwalk looked like it hadn’t been used in quite some time, but it provided an easy path to the thin, adjustable metal-louvered cover that blocked the ventilation ductwork’s access point. The ductwork maintained the airflow to all of Section Seven by circulating the breathable air through the sub-levels and out the elevator shaft to topside out-piping.

 

Crypto considered trying to fight gravity and ascending the elevator car’s main support cable up to the maintenance catwalk, but found to his dismay that the twisted and braided steel was generously slathered in thick, black, slippery axle grease so that it ran more quietly over the pulley mechanism. He figured that despite the risk of drawing attention from making loud noises, his only way out of the shaft quickly was to break the lock plate and find a way to ride the main support cable up to the top. If he could hang onto the cable, he would rise as the counterweight was released to drop in the opposite direction.

 

As muffled shouts of Viper security troopers from behind the sub-level lobby doors filtered into the shaft, Crypto’s mind worked quickly while his eyes scanned as much as they could take in with the meager light. He checked the cargo pockets of his BDU trousers, where he had deposited the only two pieces of hope for a successful escape left in his possession. His fingers groped and found the cool plastic casing of his TDC communicator, which was folded shut at the very bottom of a pocket, and the hard steel of the 9mm Browning Hi-Power automatic.

 

Crypto shrugged his BDU shirt off his shoulders and then stripped off his sweat-soaked cotton undershirt, which had become reduced to fabric tatters from being roughly handled by the Cobra guards as the officer had been dragged back and forth to the interrogation sessions. He tied the sleeves of the BDU shirt tightly around his waist so that he wouldn’t lose the article of clothing in the process of escaping from the shaft.

 

Using his teeth and both hands, Crypto tore two long strips out of the undershirt, but not without wasting a few failed attempts and developing an excruciating pain in his teeth from gum deterioration and the fact the prison didn’t feed him very well since he had been brought in. Tossing the shredded remains of the cotton tee shirt aside, Crypto took the lengths of fabric he had torn and wrapped his hands up with the strips of woven material.

 

With his hands suitably protected, Crypto picked up the fire axe and concentrated on making his immediate problem work out. He planted his feet as best as he could on the uneven roof of the elevator car and took aim at the support cable lock plate, bracing himself as he brought the sharp head of the fire axe up over his head. He pointed it at the large metal fitting that kept the counterweight cable under tension. Crypto choked up a little on the handle of the axe until he was satisfied that he could hit his target with one blow, then swung the axe down with all the force he could muster.

 

CLANGGG!!!

 

The ringing sound of metal upon metal echoed up the elevator shaft, and although Crypto feared the Cobra guards would discover him quickly, he could see that his plan was sound. The old forged metal ring that held the cable to the elevator car frame had buckled from the combination of the tension of the cable and counterweight, and the stresses placed upon it by Crypto’s blow with the fire axe. He was sure that the first sound was already drawing troops to the elevator lobbies on every level, so he reared back and pounded at his target over and over, as fast as he could strike with the axe and recover.

 

A sliver of bright light from above entered the elevator shaft as some Cobra troopers tried to pry open the shaft doors on another sub-level, investigating the noises. “Come on,” Crypto whispered to the ring, hauling back to swing the axe once more. “Break loose damn you!”

 

Two more blows did the trick, and it was just in time, as the Cobras above attempted to smash through the shaft doors. The metal half-ring tore free and the looped end of the counterweight cable began to move as the mass of the counterweight was set loose and began to fall down the shaft. Crypto had only a few heartbeats to act. He caught the loop end of the cable in one of his fabric-wrapped palms and felt the jolt in his shoulder as the quarter-ton counterweight drew his two hundred pounds up the shaft. Crypto couldn’t drop the axe in time to bring his other hand up to the loop, and he felt pain tearing at his shoulder as he struggled to keep hold of the slick, greasy cable loop while it rose quickly to the top of the shaft.

 

Crypto heard a loud crash in the black depths below and started to smell a dank cloud of stone dust and smoke rising from the bottom of the elevator shaft. The massive, multi-ton counterweight slipped loose from its path and smashed at an angle into the elevator car, starting an electrical fire inside. He spotted the steel catwalk that spanned the elevator shaft, supported by trusses built into the stone foundation of the prison, just above him. Swinging his legs back and forth, he started moving in the catwalk’s direction. As he felt his hands start to slip from the cable, he aimed for the closest supporting I-beam and released himself.

 

Flying in a short arc from the cable to the support beam, Crypto reached out and his fingers found the sharp edge of the crossbeam. He latched on and found his grip despite the hard steel edges tearing at the fabric that protected his palms and gouging into his flesh. Still feeling a sharp sting in his shoulder from the stresses placed on his joint and muscles, Crypto somehow found the strength to shuffle his hands into a balanced position and pulled himself onto the catwalk, panting with fatigue. He used the steel sidebars to keep himself propped upright and shuffled to the louvered vent cover.

 

A number of thick steel pipes had been stacked on the catwalk and abandoned there, most likely used by the construction crew to build the maintenance catwalks throughout the underground facility. Crypto hoisted a short length of pipe and inserted it between the louvers of the vent cover, straining against it until the cover broke free from the bolts that held it fast against the ventilation ductwork.

 

Throwing the ventilation cover and pipe over the side of the catwalk and into the elevator shaft, Crypto lowered himself into the duct and leaned against the edge of the corrugated metal in a sitting position. Listening for sounds of guards moving or voices, Crypto pulled his knees against his body and cringed at the shoulder pains, allowing himself a brief moment to catch his breath and take stock of his next step.

 

He felt for the contents of his pockets, finding (to his good fortune) that the TDC unit and Browning Hi-Power were still in his possession. He turned on the TDC and it lit up, although he could still not acquire a signal. He quickly cut the power on the communicator and started crawling deeper into the ventilation system ducts.

 

***

 

0540 hours, local time

 

“This is Sub-Level Five security patrol, Lieutenant Deming,” a Cobra Viper said into the microphone of his walkie-talkie. “The escaped Joe sabotaged the elevator and cut the counterweight cable. There’s an electrical fire in the elevator car down here, and no sign of the prisoner on any of the sub-levels so far.”

 

“Very well,” Deming replied, summoning officers from the prison security force to coordinate the grouping of off-duty troopers into sweep teams and to mobilize the canine handlers with their deadly attack-trained German Shepherds and Rottweilers. “Get the fire out and re-sweep all spaces on your sub-level. Report anything out of the ordinary to me directly. All sub-level teams, see to the security of all other prisoners and transfer them to a locked down cell block if necessary!”

 

“Lieutenant, this is Sub-Level Four,” another Viper reported. “We have pried open the doors to the elevator shaft and can see down to the roof of the elevator car. There’s a fire axe and a large piece of debris that looks like one of the ventilation shaft covers. The Joe might be in the ventilation system right now.”

 

“Roger that,” Deming responded on the radio net, ordering an officer to secure the charts of the subterranean ventilation network of ducts and exits for Section Seven. “Good work, trooper.” She turned to her coordinating officers. “Deploy sweeper and dog teams to the exit ports of the duct system now!”

 

***

 

Crypto crept slowly through the metal ductwork, careful not to make any sounds that might give away his location or direction of movement. Although his shoulder smarted from being wrenched violently in the elevator shaft, Crypto gutted out the discomfort since he knew that he had to get the prison’s location to the Joes at King Khalid. He also had to get back to Flint and aid in releasing the Warrant Officer, so that both of them could get sprung from the facility.

 

The overpowering urge to get himself and Flint out of enemy captivity drove Crypto to ignore his own pain and discomfort, as well as the effects of the torture he had endured so far. After a few minutes of maneuvering, Crypto found a patch of sunlight that was drifting into the ventilation ductwork. He worked his way closer to it and found that it ran to an opening that overlooked the main yard of the prison.

 

Stopping to catch his breath and listen quietly for the enemy movement patterns and any approaching security sweeper teams, Crypto dug his TDC out of his cargo pocket and turned it on. The tiny solar cell began to accept the sunlight and turned it into a recharge for the communications device.

 

After about two minutes of waiting, Crypto’s TDC found a lock-on with a signals relay satellite that was passing over the Baghdad region, and the sailor removed the battery cover on the unit to flip the panic mode switch. A small red LED flashed every five seconds to indicate that the TDC was transmitting its emergency beacon signal. Sitting inside the shaft, Crypto brought the TDC to his ear and tried to dial up the KKMC headquarters base station.

 

***

 

  1. I. Joe Command-Operations Center



King Khalid Military City, Saudi Arabia

0600 hours, local time

 

Swansong and General Tomahawk sat in a small office in the Command-Operations Center, with a computer display of the area around Hafr-al-Batin Air Base in front of them, when the intercom telephone rang. The Air Force intelligence major rolled her office chair to the intercom panel and answered the incoming call.

 

“Hello?” Swansong said. “This is conference room one.”

 

“This is the signals center,” Sparks said over the line. “May I patch through a radio call from Phantom Station?”

 

“Affirmative,” Swansong replied. “Please go ahead and put the station through.”

 

There was a click and some momentary silence. After the silence broke, Swansong could hear the slightly scratchy radio transmission from the Joes at the HIMARS launcher’s site, which was being relayed through the intercom phone.

 

“Brass Hat Six, this is Phantom Station,” Sky-Spy reported. “Spot Report. Station is up and ready. Please transmit final mission authorization.”

 

Swansong turned to face General Tomahawk. “Sir,” she said, “Phantom Station reports ready. The cruise missile and special payload are in position and set to launch. We just need your final authorization to kick this little raid off.”

 

“Go,” Tomahawk replied, without pause or looking at Swansong by the intercom.

 

Swansong nodded and brought the phone handset back to her ear. “Phantom Station, this is Brass Hat Six. You are a go for the fire mission.”

 

***

 

  1. I. Joe Communications Center



King Khalid Military City, Saudi Arabia

0600 hours, local time

 

“There’s an incoming TDC signal from the field,” Breaker reported excitedly from his monitoring station. “Get the staff duty officer in here!”

 

Crypto’s voice came over the static-filled connection sounding tired and weak. “Crazy Horse Six, calling Helmsman Six. How do you copy, over?”

 

Breaker dialed up the gain on the signal, programming the relay satellite to maximize the power of its re-transmission, and cross-loading a second feed of the signal from a long-range MARS transmission-relay tower near the 42nd Infantry Division’s Area of Responsibility (AOR) on the border. Soon, the static began to clear, and Crypto’s voice came through.

 

“Crazy Horse Six, calling Helmsman Six. How do you copy, over?”

 

“Helmsman Six, calling Crazy Horse Six,” Breaker replied, pointing to an empty workstation as Sparks ran over to help with Crypto’s call. “We read you. Are you secured?”

 

“I’m in a hide for now, Helmsman Six,” Crypto said. “Authenticate me.”

 

Breaker already knew that Crypto was the real thing, when he asked to be read the code of the day for his mission profile before providing any information. The communications specialist flipped through a constantly updated mission logbook to find the list of code words and challenges for Crazy Horse. “I challenge Alfa-November. Six, please issue the code word.”

 

“Code word is Princeton. Go secure,” Crypto replied, pressing a button on his TDC to scramble and encrypt his transmitted signal so that it would be harder for the Cobras to trace. “I have my panic alarm on and will hide my TDC so the beacon can broadcast steadily.”

 

“Roger that,” Sparks replied into the boom mike connected to his helmet, which he had plugged into his signals workstation. He was hurriedly punching up the GPS tracking system so that the TDC signal could be triangulated within Baghdad for later use.

 

“Are you alone?” Breaker asked while retrieving a pad and pen to scribble any important intelligence Crypto could pass along.

 

“Flint was brought in here too,” Crypto replied in a whisper. “We’ve been held underground in a place called ‘Section Seven’. They move us back and forth from cell blocks to interrogation rooms that aren’t normally too far apart. No other prisoners are apparently housed in our area. There's no sign of anyone else except for the guards. We’ve tried to escape before and taken out a few of the enemy each time, so they shift us around to different cell blocks after each incident, to try to make it harder for us to get our bearings and plan another escape attempt.”

 

Major Storm rushed into the communications room to listen to the transmission from Crypto, passing a hand-scrawled list of questions for Breaker to ask. “It’s good to know you guys are still resisting the enemy,” Breaker said. “But we need to know something. Flint had a copilot when he flew over the border. Is Green Shirt Sergeant Wiley with you?”

 

“Negative,” Crypto said. “I haven’t seen him, nor has Flint said much about a copilot. I suspect he’s probably Kilo-India-Alfa.”

 

Breaker, Sparks and Major Storm traded looks at Crypto’s use of the phonetic letters K-I-A, which meant ‘Killed in Action’. “Roger that,” Breaker said slowly. “We copy Sergeant Wiley is possibly KIA. Do you know of anyone else?”

 

“I heard Flint mention Lady Jaye,” Crypto replied. “But I am unsure of the accuracy of that statement. I haven’t seen her myself, and would suspect that she’d have been here a longer time than Flint or I if she was nabbed from the Hatchet mission.”

 

“We’ll check on that,” Breaker said, while Major Storm passed him a note that read “Jaye is in the KKMC base hospital.”

 

“Our information says that all of Hatchet Team returned to base intact, Crypto,” Breaker said after reading Major Storm’s note.

 

Crypto fell silent, both as a precaution when he heard footfalls and barking dogs from the exercise yard nearby, and as his mind reeled from the confirmation. Something was being done to misinform Flint, and he had bought it. He was potentially compromised. They had to get out double quick, or else the Joes’ secrets would be out of the bag.

 

“Are you and Flint together?” Sparks asked, while Breaker and Major Storm checked on a few electronic spikes that concerned them. The Joes at KKMC began to think that Cobra might have tried to lay a direction finder on the signal, if it had set off a tracker in one of the enemy’s electronic intelligence listening post sites scattered around Baghdad.

 

“Negative,” Crypto said once more. “I’m going back for him.”

 

“Roger that,” Sparks replied. “Stay together as best as possible and conceal your TDC. We are mobilizing a rescue party and triangulating your position to plan your extraction. Keep the faith, G. I. Joe. Be careful and try to report in again if you can. We’re not leaving you or Flint behind.”

 

“Crypto copies,” the Lieutenant replied. He removed the coverings to his bloodied palms and used the torn fabric to make a sling for the TDC. He intended to hang it from one of the duct’s metal support stringers, keeping the solar cell pointed towards the beams of sunlight for as long as possible to allow the battery to remain charged. “I’m going back underground. Crazy Horse Six, over and out.”

 

***

 

Al-Batin Training Range

Saudi Arabia

0605 hours, local time

 

Sky-Spy turned away from the shelter’s radio set and chucked Tailwind gently on the shoulder. “We’re a go for launch, Tailwind,” he said, putting aside his TDC communications unit and settling into his work chair.

 

Tailwind hunched over her terminal and also watched an oscilloscope from a TMDE unit that was wired into the serial bus and launch circuits of the missile. She pulled the keyboard at her control terminal out of its shelf and onto her lap so that she could type faster as she ran through the last few lines of her missile launch checklist.

 

“Traverse machinery and GPS positional reference?” Sky-Spy asked Tailwind, marking off a small logbook with his notes.

 

“Check,” Tailwind replied. “Traverse machinery is set and GPS triangulation of the site is verified.” She looked out of a small hinged window built into the S-250 shelter and watched as the cobbled-together launcher rose from the HEMTT’s cargo bed and rotated into firing position.

 

“Target location verified?” Sky-Spy asked.

 

“Well, it’s the Intel Shop’s best guess as to the location of the presidential palace that Saddam has provided for the Cobra leaders,” Tailwind responded. “But the latest maps look about right. The surveillance and HUMINT data showed at least four major compounds within the city that were listed as official properties of Saddam Hussein’s regime or the Ba’ath Party, and six separate official residences. I’ve input the grid coordinates of the one we’re hitting into the mission profile and cross-loaded the routing package to the missile’s guidance system.”

 

“Okay, good,” Sky-Spy said. He threw a couple of switches on his panel, and several CRT displays changed their pictures. The three diesel fuel-powered portable generators aboard the Hummer increased their noise level as the S-250 and HEMTT drew all the electrical power the units could produce. “Payload is go. Servos are go. Controls are go. Telemetry is go. External Video is go. Final TMDE pass shows all green on the launcher. Launch and boost phase engines are go. Cruise ramjet is go. Launch igniter is go. Stand by on the mission clock and get the Green Shirts clear.”

 

Tailwind opened the back door of the S-250 and shouted in the direction of the Green Shirt security detail guarding their position. “Heads down!” she yelled. “Fire in the hole! Seek cover! Sixty seconds!”

 

When the Green Shirts scattered for cover behind a partially destroyed stone wall a safe distance away from the vehicles, a loud whine grew from the missile launcher box. Seconds ticked away as the missile’s nose camera and GPS data-linked guidance system transponder sent video images and position telemetry back to Sky-Spy’s screens.

 

“Launcher abort switch is armed and ready,” Tailwind reported. “All boards are green. Ten seconds to firing.”

 

Sky-Spy reached out in front of his panel and gently gripped onto a pair of joysticks that were labeled “Package”. He released them and nodded to Tailwind.

 

“Launch in five... four... three... two... one... Missile away!” Tailwind exclaimed, punching a large red plunger button that triggered the ignition starter charge on the missile. The BGM-109 Tomahawk’s booster rocket lit off inside the metal box, smashing the payload module of the weapon through the thin plastic covering that kept the launcher cell sealed and protected from outside moisture.

 

The entire area around the launch site rumbled and vibrated as the large naval cruise missile leaped into the sky. Its initial launching engine felt like a massive blast when it fired, and then the pulsating sound of its boost phase engine kicked in while the rapid-expansion chemical propellants threw the missile forward in such a violent acceleration that it was beyond human endurance.

 

When the boost engine ran out of fuel, the sleek, jet-black missile’s stub wings had popped out of the body casing and the main ramjet engine took over. By the time the missile was in its cruise phase, it had dropped down to three hundred feet altitude and was fifty miles from the launcher. The ramjet would carry it the final two hundred twenty miles to the center of metropolitan Baghdad.

 

“Our bird is running hot, straight and normal,” Tailwind reported, as she and Sky-Spy nodded at the telemetry and video being broadcast to the S-250 shelter from the missile’s onboard systems. “Auto-evasion programming is running, and the package is settled into a flight level of five hundred feet. It’ll be an hour and forty minutes before you’re up on the sticks.”

 

Sky-Spy yawned and reached for a large Thermos full of coffee. “Okay, then. Keep an eye on things while I take a constitutional and stretch my legs. Let me know if Cobra tries messing with our little chickadee.”

 

***

 

Al-Batin Training Range

Saudi Arabia

0740 hours, local time

 

Tailwind took a long sip from a Styrofoam coffee cup and checked her watch against the mission clock that displayed on her terminal’s video monitor. Sky-Spy continued to doze quietly across from her in the signal shelter.

 

The Sky Patrol sergeant and tactical UAV pilot reached across to the counter where Sky-Spy had propped up his legs, and yanked his boots off the surface, dropping his feet to the floor with a clatter.

 

“Rise and shine, Master Sergeant Dysart,” Tailwind said with a mischievous grin. “Time to give Cobra Commander his morning wakeup call.”

 

Sky-Spy shook himself awake and gave Tailwind a look that could melt steel. “A simple chuck on the shoulder would have sufficed, Sergeant Jamison.”

 

The UAV operator turned to his control console and checked the telemetry coming from the Tomahawk cruise missile. He punched a few buttons and took hold of the control joysticks that were built into his console. “Stand by for booster stage separation. Twenty seconds until we engage the UAV ramjet and blow the explosive bolts.”

 

“Booster stage sep ready,” Tailwind reported. “Penetrator UAV engines have spun up and telemetry shows green. Standing by to deploy wings and elevons.”

 

“Go for separation,” Sky-Spy said, flipping a pair of switches on his board. “Explosive bolts armed and ready to detonate.”

 

***

 

Somewhere over Iraq, the sleek, black-painted Tomahawk cruise missile with its oddly-shaped protrusion attached where its nosecone should have been had dropped to an altitude of three hundred feet and was cruising at maximum speed over the open desert sands.

 

Although the special black paint was a mixture of radar absorbent material and chemical refractants that made tracking by radar or laser difficult, the weapon’s flight path had tickled the electronic ears of Cobra and Iraqi defensive listening posts. It was enough to have placed a number of light air defense units on alert around Baghdad.

 

When Tailwind executed the separation command, explosive bolts around the base of the missile where the payload met the main airframe broke the missile body apart, destroying it and the major electronic guidance components so that they couldn’t be recovered and re-used. The propellant fuel was released from its containment cell by the same explosions, and it ignited uncontrollably, incinerating much of the missile’s airframe as a secondary means of preventing the technology from being discovered and exploited by the enemy.

 

The payload, a short-range Penetrator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, continued to fly forward momentarily, propelled by kinetic energy and its momentum, before it sprouted a pair of fiberglass stub wings and small elevons that controlled its flight in all three dimensions. The Penetrator’s rocket motor fired once the wings had deployed, and it aimed itself towards Baghdad, nudged in the correct heading by Sky-Spy’s control movements.

 

“Payload is on course and the separation is complete,” Tailwind said. “The Penetrator will be over the Presidential Palace at zero-seven-fifty-five hours.”

 

“I have control of the craft,” Sky-Spy said. “Call in the sentries; we’ll return to base as soon as the drop is completed.”

 

***

 

Section Seven, Topside

Saddam Military Prison

0750 hours, local time

 

Crypto continued to move in the ventilation system, pausing every so often in quieter spots to let his ears ring out from the echoing machinery sounds that filled the confined spaces. The sailor was mildly claustrophobic around large crowds, and one might think that he’d have a hard time in the ductwork, but he did well in keeping his fears under control. He had bigger fish to fry.

 

It would only be a matter of time until Lieutenant Deming and the Baroness would get the bright idea to find a way to scan for his presence or send a few hapless Vipers into the vents and crawl spaces to flush him out. So Crypto decided to change directions and try to make it out into the prison complex at large. Getting away from the confines of the secure admin building and Section Seven would surely improve his chances.

 

He worked his way along the maze of ducts and stopped when he found a grating under his hands and knees that led down into a darkened room. The grating was hinged, which he determined by feel, and as he moved his fingers around the edges of it, they eventually found the latch and striker that was used to hold it shut. A triangular piece of metal, screwed into a handle under the grating, locked against a flat plate that jutted out from an aluminum jamb built into the duct.

 

Unfortunately, Crypto’s mind calculated, he wasn’t in the best position to work open the grating. The ductwork as barely wide enough for him to shimmy through, and he had approached the grating from the hinged side. If he opened the grating in the position he was lying, his upper torso and head would fall right through as the grating dropped open, and chances were good that he’d land on his head and do serious damage to himself. If he pulled himself past the grating, he wouldn’t be able to work the latch open.

 

He decided to make the attempt to open the grating carefully while lying on his side. He stretched out his left arm, into the duct beyond the grating, to balance his weight across the opening, and pressed his back against the side of the duct so his weight wouldn’t try to draw him straight down as the grate opened. That left his right arm and hand free to open the latch and lower the grating down without making any noise.

 

Sucking in a breath to help focus, and watching carefully for signs of a light coming on below him, Crypto gripped onto the latch and prayed that it wasn’t locked from underneath. The metal locking piece wasn’t designed to turn from the inside, and it didn’t give right away. But eventually, the part moved and Crypto slipped it open. He lowered the grating carefully, making sure not to lose his own balance and fall through the opening.

 

When he was sure the room was safe to enter, Crypto pulled his torso past the opening and dangled his legs down. He steadied himself and then lowered his body into a hanging position. Because of the darkness, he couldn’t gauge how high over the solid floor he was, or if there was an obstruction that he could injure himself on. The metal ductwork began to groan where the supports were holding up all of his weight, and Crypto could feel the aluminum supports starting to give way.

 

He let himself go and dropped safely to the floor. When he landed, he felt a sharp pain in one of his ankles, and crouched instantly to grab onto it, feeling for any dislocated joints or sprains. When the pain subsided enough to continue, Crypto groped around until he found a wall and light switch.

 

He flipped the switch on and the lights came up in a maintenance room, which was about ten feet square, and full of materials. Apparently, Cobra had decided to use the room to store crates of older Iraqi small arms and ammunition, to keep the prison armory free for their better gear. Crypto wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and sighed with relief when he looked back at the duct grating. He had dropped into the room mere inches from a large tool rack that was festooned with rows of sharpened axes and other tools. Any one of the blades could’ve done some nasty damage and ended his escape attempt.

 

Crypto pried open some of the wooden crates and found to his surprise that his discovery was quite a windfall. A number of the crates contained variants of Soviet AK-47 assault rifles, still wrapped in factory protective materials. Others had the brown plastic “banana clips” favored by the Russian airborne forces for being lighter in weight than the original stamped steel magazines. Ammunition was plentiful; at least a thousand loose rounds were inside a plastic sack that had been folded over a wooden box and simply left in the room unsealed. There were even Russian-made PG-7 rocket-propelled grenades and reels of thick, high-speed detonation cord.

 

Crypto wondered what the Iraqi prison system would need with some of the stuff that Cobra had dumped in the maintenance room, but it didn’t matter. He held his BDU shirt out like a bag and scooped out handfuls of 7.62mm ammo, to load into a few magazines. Once he had eight full magazines, he taped them together in pairs with duct tape from the room’s workbench. Finding a utility knife in one of the workbench drawers, he shaved off the factory shrink-wrap from an AKM, the airborne version of the Kalashnikov, with folding metal stock and light plastic grips. Although he wasn’t an expert shot with the weapon, he knew how to work it and made sure the assemblies were all in good order, which they were.

 

The PG-7 RPG rounds didn’t come with a launcher, but Crypto didn’t think he’d need it. He had a better idea for the explosives inside the grenades. The sailor unscrewed the long, tubular rocket motor assemblies from three warheads and put just the explosive parts into a burlap sack that had been used to wrap them while in their shipping crate. He added a short reel of detonation cord to the sack and his taped magazines.

 

Cobra’s carelessness had led to just the edge Crypto needed to sow some confusion and try to get Flint loose from Section Seven. He took all the remaining ammunition and ordnance in the room and covered them with a gallon’s worth of flammable lubricants and liquids that he found on the workbench.

 

There hadn’t been much in the way of industrial chemicals in the room, but he found two full jugs of ammonia-based cleaning solvent and taped them to one of the PG-7 rocket motors, which still contained volatile chemical propellant. Then he ran a reel of det cord from the ammonia assembly, through the ammunition pile, and then brought it up to the hallway door.

 

Crypto quietly charged his AKM and put its sling over his neck and shoulder before turning out the light. Then he cautiously opened the door to the hallway just a crack and peeked outside. The hallway seemed to be empty. There weren’t any footfalls outside. His eyes couldn’t pick out any guard stations in either direction. So he quietly opened the door and slipped into the hall in a crouching position, unrolling the det cord behind him.

 

***

 

Interrogation Wing

Section Seven

 

“How does the search for the escaped Joe progress?” the Baroness asked Lt. Deming when the two met in Flint’s interrogation room.

 

“Nothing so far,” the lieutenant reported. “But I have requested the signals room to try to tune in on any unauthorized frequencies that may be transmitting from this site. The Techno-Vipers and Tele-Vipers are also trying to scare up something they can modify into an HF/DF receiver in order to track down Crypto’s communications unit. They’re analyzing the unit we took from Flint.”

 

“For now,” Deming added, “the physical search is where the garrison is focusing. The yard and general population complex has been locked down. The tower guards have been doubled, and I have sweep teams with dogs patrolling the yard and the perimeter of the admin building topside. I don’t think he will get very far.”

 

“Stick to it, and don’t leave any stone unturned,” the Baroness said. “As I recall, this Crypto has been in Baghdad before. Is that correct?”

 

Lieutenant Deming nodded. “That’s what I can gather from the available records. The advisors here in Iraq at the time held him here as well. Their reports were oddly brief after a certain point. It was likely that their rate of correspondence and lack of success in interrogating him was meant to cover up their own mistakes. The final admission of his escape in 1993 came long after reports from a Cobra agent in northern Saudi Arabia reported some commotion in Kuwait about an American officer. The agent couldn’t verify much, but when Baghdad admitted they had lost him, we had to scramble to pick his trail up once more. Everyone was covering their asses at the time.”

 

“Then be very careful, and tell your troops to do the same,” the Baroness counseled the junior intelligence officer. “He might try the same flaw in this facility’s security that he used to escape back then. Check each and every possible access point, no matter how insignificant.”

 

“I understand,” Deming replied, taking her leave and hurrying to the elevator to return to the surface.

 

***

 

Crypto scouted quietly around the hallway he was in. Surprisingly, there were no guards in the office spaces at all. He opened up a door and found himself inside a small and all but abandoned office.

 

It had an old, dust-covered desk and cheap chairs were stacked against one wall. The paint was peeling or cracked in several places, and apparently no one had bothered to clean up the blood trails from the room’s more violent interrogations.

 

The office did have a window that overlooked the central prison yard, barred from the outside with solid iron rods. However, the space beyond the window was in the unsecured area, the part of the prison that was cordoned off from the prisoner-occupied areas.

 

To deter escapes, the obviously unprotected or security-only access areas were set off by the mazes of fences and concertina wire that kept the prisoners in their own areas. Only a limited number of access points allowed persons to move between the secured and unsecured areas. And the Cobra Vipers kept those nice and tight ever since they took up residence.

 

However, if someone made it to the unsecured areas, they could move with relative ease and had a lot more places to hide. Ample cover was provided by spaces between buildings and the prison walls, unused security posts, the bases of the guard towers, the loading docks for supply vehicles, and the utility and plumbing plants.

 

Even though Crypto didn’t have a chance to survey Cobra’s modifications to the prison’s rings of inner security, from his last visit to the very same prison some ten-plus years earlier he remembered enough about the unsecured area. He unpacked the PG-7 warheads from his ersatz haversack and wedged them between the iron bars and the window’s original stone sill. Then he wrapped the remainder of his det cord around the bars and the warheads, leaving a length of it loose for him to light off.

 

Crypto’s escape plan was fairly simple, except for the timing. He had a small self-lighting gas torch from the maintenance room. With the old desk in the office overturned for protection, he would use it as a shield while he blew out the window and iron bars.

 

As the guards reacted to the obvious detonation, he would set off the pile of chemicals and ammo in the maintenance room, kicking up a noxious cloud of ammonia fumes and the by-products of the unstable Russian RPG propellant oxidizers. The fumes would deter the guards from getting behind him, giving him time to get outside the first hole unnoticed.

 

Crypto crouched behind the old desk’s heavy timbers and lit off the torch. He touched it to the end of his det cord and then held his ears, pinching his eyes firmly shut.

 

Conventional PETN-cotton core detonation cord, as developed for commercial uses, is designed to burn at a rate of 6,500 meters per second, or over 19,500 feet per second. Military-grade and special application cords often burn even faster. The use of small amounts of actual high-grade explosive in the cord causes such rapid burn speeds.

 

When det cord is wrapped around an object, the detonation effect of the cord increases by the number of turns around the object. It is a known field expedient tactic to use engineer-grade military det cord to cut landing zones in triple-growth jungle by wrapping it around the tree trunks. This would create a sequential explosion, severing each trunk as the det cord burned away.

 

When Crypto lit off his expedient demolition charge, the burning detonation cord crossed the ten-foot wide room in less than one second. The ordnance wedged into the window bars blew quickly, ripping the entire masonry wall to shreds and turning a six-foot-wide section around the window into a pile of dust and rubble.

 

Crypto lit the second fuse that led from the small office about seventy feet down the hallway and into the interior maintenance room. As the det cord burned away, he ran through the cloud of dust settling around the outer hole and sprinted for the closest blind spot under which he could take cover.

 

The second explosion completely destroyed the maintenance room and consumed all of the ordnance Cobra had stored inside, which was considerably more than Crypto had estimated when he was ransacking the place. He could feel the whole foundation of the administration building shake, and a blast of wind from the contained explosion blew him face down onto the ground.

 

***

 

Lieutenant Deming felt a strong vibration as she traveled between the sub-levels and topside in the Section Seven elevator. When the lights in the car flickered momentarily and then returned, she suspected trouble.

 

The doors couldn’t open fast enough for Deming when she reached topside. She practically pried them apart with her bare hands, only to find the Viper guards she had posted sprawled out all over the lobby floor, gripping their headgear or dazedly wondering what had happened.

 

“Get to the fire fighting locker and draw extinguishers and OBA gear!” Deming ordered the closest Vipers, as she drew her automatic pistol and followed the cloud of smoke being channeled through the halls of the building from its source.

 

Upon reaching a junction in the halls where two Vipers lay screaming in pain, Deming crouched over the soldiers, grabbing one by the chin and looking him over. Both Vipers had trickles of blood coming from both ears, a sure sign of perforated eardrums from the contained blast sound and overpressure being close by. Their eyes were also glazed over and the men were coughing profusely. Neither could talk, as if they had breathed in a toxic gas.

 

Deming wrinkled her nose at the pungent smell of cleaning ammonia. Fortunately, the concentration was rapidly dissipating, but she suspected it wouldn’t be so at the epicenter of the explosion. Her sharp senses could also pick out the scent of oxidized cordite and the especially odd smell of Russian RPG propellants.

 

She stripped a gas mask out of one of the injured Vipers’ CBR protection kits and quickly put it over her head. The small, oval eye lenses were hardly better for her vision than blinking through the fumes, but she wisely needed the mask to pursue Crypto, suspecting that the explosion was a diversion for him to get loose.

 

Before going further into the affected area of the building, Deming grabbed another security Viper. She was angry at how the prison’s troops’ training and discipline couldn’t prevent Crypto from starting such chaos. “Tell the Baroness what has happened,” she ordered. “I think the escaped Joe is trying to get out of the prison, and I’m going to hunt him down. Spread the word to the yard patrols that he is to be re-captured at all costs! No one kills him unless the Baroness expressly approves it first!”

 

***

 

Crypto got to the space between the admin building and the prison’s outer wall before the enemy patrols converging on the gaping hole he had blown had a chance to spot him. The officer was correct in his assumption that his break would get patrols mobilized in the prisoner areas where they assumed he would be contained.

 

Crypto knew better. And with all the soldiers inside the corrals, there would be very few in the unsecured areas to interdict his movements. They’d have a long way to go to get where he was, unless they braved the toxic chemical mist he left behind and followed his route.

 

By the time anyone got close, Crypto figured he’d have found the FANG II gyro copters stationed at the prison and would’ve strafed a couple guard towers on the way out. That is, if he was the only one who had to make good an escape.

 

Crypto slid quietly along the prison wall behind the admin building, moving towards the aboveground prisoner buildings that were furthest from the main gate. He remembered that the largest clearing other than the prison exercise yard was towards that part of the prison and in the unsecured area.

 

He reached the helicopter pad and found no aircraft there at present. However, there were a number of utility trucks, UAZ-469 and Stinger jeeps, and Ferret quad-runners. A half dozen guards and two attack dogs were visible along the closest end of the concrete pad.

 

Crypto charged out of his cover, firing into the security detail with his stolen AK-47. The Vipers tried to set loose their attack dogs, which were foaming hungrily at the mouth to chew on Crypto. As they bolted forward, Crypto cut them down in the same volley of rifle fire that killed their handlers.

 

Switching to more careful aimed fire, Crypto hit the other four Vipers enough to at least incapacitate them, with grazing head shots, and accurate hits on their arms or legs. As the Vipers went down, no longer able to fight back, he snatched up a couple of their grenades and selected a convenient UAZ-469 jeep to climb into.

 

The Cobra motor pool was just like any other one, where security was lax on average. The keys to the UAZ were in the ignition out of convenience. Crypto started the Russian jeep up and shifted it into gear, lobbing the grenades into open-topped vehicles as he drove away. Three small explosions rocked the motor pool, drawing a number of the guards’ attention from the admin building and other duties nearby.

 

***

 

The prison fire fighting detail had assembled quickly with their OBA gear and rubber turnout coats. Armed with AFFF foam and Halon 1307 chemical dispersion cans, and a hose fed by the admin building’s internal plumbing system, they worked their way down the halls on Lieutenant Deming’s heels as she picked her way past the maintenance room, kicking open all the abandoned office doors beyond it.

 

Deming eventually found the office where Crypto blasted out the outside wall. She leaped out through the same hole Crypto did and was looking around when the motor pool explosions went off. She tore off her gas mask and threw it to the ground.

 

“The Joe is in the unsecured areas!” Deming yelled at the rapidly thinning clutch of Vipers behind the prisoner enclosure. “Get out here! Get foam cans over to the motor pool! Find the escaped American, or else it’ll be all our asses!”

 

Deming barely got her orders out when she saw Crypto’s UAZ-469 racing towards her along the inner access road. He wasn’t stopping when she raised her hand for him to halt, and she couldn’t tell Crypto was behind the wheel until she was quickly diving out of the way.

 

Landing hard on her right shoulder, Deming rolled to her left as Crypto drove past, firing her pistol at the speeding jeep. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she dropped her shoulders with a sigh when the jeep kept moving towards the main gate.

 

“Someone call the main gate and tell them to look sharp,” Deming whispered in between rasps. There were no guards around to obey her.

 

***

 

Crypto’s UAZ-469 was typical of any Army light utility vehicle. He had chosen it because the canvas top was rolled back around the roll bars and the windshield was dropped down and rested on the hood. As the main gate approached, Crypto could rest his AK-47 on the dashboard and fire while keeping a hand on the steering wheel.

 

At first Crypto didn’t notice that Deming had fired at him, because of the adrenaline running through him. But when he glanced down at his legs, he saw a trickle of blood. Lieutenant Deming had scored a lucky hit on the meaty part of his left thigh, the bullet having ripped a hole in his BDU’s and dug a trench through his flesh.

 

Bullets fired by the main gate’s guards rattled around Crypto’s UAZ and the Joe officer ducked behind the dashboard as best as he could while returning fire to keep the Vipers under cover. He jammed a heavy piece of stone rubble on the gas pedal and rolled to his left, bailing from the jeep as it tore into the layered barricades at the main gate and exploded.

 

The vehicle impact wasn’t sufficient to destroy the main gate or to kill the guard detachment posted there. It was however, enough to keep the perimeter troops tied down as Crypto again hunted for cover. This time, he painfully dragged his left leg around as the thigh wound made movement more difficult.

 

The prison’s utility plant was close by, and Crypto took cover behind a massive steel electrical transformer. Once he was able to catch his breath, he took stock of his situation and considered the next move.

 

***

 

“Holy shit!” a Viper shouted in disbelief after reaching Lieutenant Deming to see if she was injured. “The whole prison is going up! The main gate is on fire!”

 

Deming looked around, with one of her hands pressed against a sharp pain in her forehead. Somehow, her frustration and the apparent migraine that she was developing over Crypto’s actions gave her a moment of tactical clarity.

 

“I know what he’s doing!” she exclaimed suddenly. “He’s spreading us out and distracting us! He’s trying to find a way to tie us up long enough to get back into Section Seven and free Flint!”

 

Deming grabbed for the Viper’s walkie-talkie and keyed it. “Lieutenant Deming calling the Baroness. Are you there?”

 

“This is the Baroness,” Baroness DeCobray answered from Flint’s interrogation room.

 

“Crypto is out here,” Deming reported. “But he’s not blowing things up in order to break out of the prison! He’s tying us up so he can get back to Flint! Can you bring him out topside so we can catch Crypto at his own game?”

 

The Baroness looked at Flint, who was struggling but weakened from the expense of energy it took to stay lucid and resist her questioning while hanging from the ceiling.

 

“I shall have him moved right away, into the prisoner yard,” the Baroness said. “Arrange your ambush quickly.”

 

***

 

Presidential Palace

Baghdad, Iraq

0755 hours, local time

 

Cobra Commander stretched and yawned as he climbed out of the well-appointed four poster bed that had been provided for his personal quarters in Baghdad. The sun was bright yellow, shining directly into the broad glass windows of his rooming suite.

 

He looked out his windows over the courtyard of the central Presidential Palace, one of the many residences maintained by Saddam Hussein in the Baghdad area for himself, state guests and his most trusted inner circle.

 

A number of Flak-Vipers were running around the open, grassy main lawns, firing rifles and light machineguns into the air under the direction of Neo-Viper security officers that wore the fourragere cord of the Commander’s personal protective detachment.

 

“Guards!” Cobra Commander shouted. “What the hell is going on around here? What’s all the shooting about? Did Saddam decide to take his assault rifle out for some raghead-style celebrating?”

 

One of the lower-ranked Neo-Vipers on the Commander’s protective unit knocked on his suite door and came inside to report. “Commander, there was a report of an unidentified aircraft over the city that failed to respond to radio instructions. For some reason, our fighter patrols cannot locate the intruder aircraft.”

 

“How can that be?” the Commander bellowed. “If it’s an aircraft, why can’t our aerial patrols locate it? Have the commander of the capital defense wing shot! Have every squadron commander busted down to permanent latrine orderly! Shoot the intruder down or silence those Flak-Vipers so I can go back to sleep!”

 

The Neo-Viper hesitated for a moment, fumbling for the handset of his walkie-talkie, when Cobra Commander grabbed his uniform lapel and shook him gruffly.

 

“Didn’t you hear me, trooper?” the Commander shouted, reaching for his personal sidearm and brandishing it in the air. “Deal with this intruder NOW! Get me a Tele-Viper who’s keyed into the security and air defense radio net so I can get a no-bullshit SITREP in here! I want to hear from the Cobra regiment that’s assigned to cover the capital today, and I don’t want to hear second-hand reports from the damn raghead Republican Guards at the airport radar site, or their militia Cretins! Go, trooper!”

 

“Yes, Cobra Commander,” the Neo-Viper stuttered cautiously. “It shall be done, leader.”

 

Cobra Commander slammed the door to his suite shut, after dragging the Neo-Viper’s assistant, a non-commissioned Viper soldier, into his foyer. He snatched the Viper’s AK-74 rifle from his twitching hands and then turned him towards his bedroom.

 

“Come along, trooper,” the Commander said. “I want you to observe the courtyard from my bedroom windows.” While the Viper stood limply in front of the window, the Commander retrieved a spare cowl and cape from his uniform closet and yanked the trooper’s helmet off from behind. He quickly tossed the cowl over the Viper’s head and wrapped him up with the cape.

 

“Good,” Cobra Commander said. “Now you stand right there until this alert passes. God forbid some sneaky Joe is behind this whole alert and is out to put a bullet in me.”

 

***

 

Al-Batin Training Range

Saudi Arabia

0757 hours, local time

 

“Penetrator is on target!” Sky-Spy reported to Tailwind. “I have a beautiful sight picture of the Presidential Palace’s spires from the UAV nose camera. The chickadee is taking fire from the ground, but I still have positive control. Turn Master Arm switch to the on position, and get the payload delivery servos warmed up.”

 

“Your pickle is hot, Sergeant Dysart,” Tailwind replied, watching an indicator on her telemetry panel glow red, signifying that the Penetrator UAV’s configurable payload bay was ready to release its contents.

 

***

 

Presidential Palace

Baghdad, Iraq

 

Cobra Commander charged out into the hallway where a large number of his personal guard had assembled, including a signals Tele-Viper from the palace’s satellite command and control center in one of the sub-levels. The Tele-Viper saluted Cobra Commander with a thrust-out right hand and the overly formal “All Hail, Mighty Cobra!” chant of the rank and file.

 

“Yes, yes, all hail,” Cobra Commander replied, shoving the Tele-Viper out of his way. “What is the report from the capital defense fire chain?”

 

“Sir,” the Tele-Viper began. “Hotel Company of the 2nd Battalion, 104th Regiment is manning the city’s innermost air defense. The Iraqis are shooting blindly based on a possible report from a southern-oriented listening post along the Tigris River. Hotel Company picked up some sort of radar reflection in open desert terrain southeast of the city’s defensive perimeter, and deployed a motorized reconnaissance patrol of Ringneck troop carriers to check it out. There have been spotty reports from civilians and militia between the contact point and here, saying that a low-flying black shape was overhead. They didn’t specifically report any discernable engine noise, so it could have been the shadow of a large river bird, or they’re just being superstitious and panicky. We won’t know what to look for until the patrol finds the source of the radar blip.”

 

“Then why are your dumb-ass Flak-Vipers still firing into the air around here?” the Commander asked angrily. “And why are the men in my personal guard standing in my corridor in full battle dress, instead of down there watching the sky?”

 

“Precautionary measures, Commander,” the junior-grade Neo-Viper who Cobra Commander had berated earlier responded. “The Flak-Vipers are convinced that they can scare off the pilot of any intruding aircraft if they give the appearance that this palace is a well-protected arsenal. And these men are here because of Destro’s directive that requires us to immediately respond to form a tight protective ring around you whenever an alert is sounded. It’s merely for your safety.”

 

“Safety? Hah!” Cobra Commander said with a laugh. “We’re going to start a war here! You should be locking this palace down and making sure the Joes can’t get inside! You should be sweeping the local rooftops with FANG choppers and looking for likely sniper hides! This all sounds like a stupid false alarm!”

 

The Commander pushed his security detail to one side of the hallway while he strode confidently towards the stairs. “Come on, you lazy ingrates! I’m going outside to see if there really is an intruder aircraft that’s come to call. Make sure my decoy stays in the window, just so that any snipers use HIM for target practice!”

 

***

 

Al-Batin Training Range

0759 hours, local time

 

“We have the target, Tailwind,” Sky-Spy said. “They have some Flak-Vipers in the surrounding yards and gardens, pumping bullets up into the air.”

 

“Is there any possible indication that the Commander is present?” Tailwind asked.

 

Sky-Spy stared at the video feed coming from the Penetrator’s grainy digital nose camera. “I can’t say for sure... Wait a second... Yeah, he’s here! He’s on the east side of the palace, third floor, and standing behind a row of large glass picture windows. He’s got his cowl and cape on, and appears to be checking out all the activity in the yard!”

 

“Do you really wanna piss ol’ Rag-Face off?” Tailwind asked with an evil grin on her young face.

 

“Do you have something special in mind, Sergeant Jamison?” Sky-Spy asked, turning the Penetrator into a slow left bank to point it at the grassy courtyard under the eastern face of the palace.

 

“After we dump the payload, let’s put the nose of the Penetrator through the Commander’s window,” Tailwind suggested. “Maybe we could be lucky enough to take him out!”

 

“I like your style,” Sky-Spy said with a sneer. “I’m going to empty the payload bay on the next pass.”

 

***

 

Presidential Palace

Baghdad, Iraq

 

Cobra Commander, flanked by his protective detail, emerged from a first floor entrance onto the east lawn of the palace, staying under the shade of a broad, multi-colored awning while he observed his soldiers and scanned the sky.

 

One of the Neo-Viper officers ran up to the Commander’s group and thrust his hand into the air in salutation. “Commander, we spotted it! It was a black shape, flying fairly level. Judging by its size, it had to be flying at some distance from here, perhaps on the eastern side of the river over the old Iraqi Army garrison. We couldn’t identify the type by its shape or silhouette!”

 

“Then, cease fire!” Cobra Commander ordered, sweeping his hand across his field of vision. “You’re wasting ammo if the intruder is so far away. Tele-Viper, relay the sighting to Ground Control Intercept and Hotel Company’s Tactical Operations Center.”

 

Just as the fire from the Flak-Vipers waned, and some of the troopers lowered the barrels of their weapons towards the ground, a shower of white paper leaflets cascaded down to the yard from above. The Flak-Vipers started yelling and shooting, pointing to the black, slow moving shape that was really directly overhead.

 

“Commander! It’s here! It’s an unmanned drone, and dropping leaflets!” the leader of the Commander’s protective detail exclaimed.

 

“Bring me a leaflet,” the Commander replied. “I want to see what hogwash the American Psychological Operations people are trying to pawn off on these idiotic Iraqis. And knock that damn drone out of my airspace, dammit!”

 

***

 

Al-Batin Training Range

0800 hours, local time

 

“Payload is away!” Sky-Spy said, clicking on the trigger button that sat atop his control joystick. “We can tell General Tomahawk that the message has been delivered. I only wish we had loaded a five hundred pound daisy cutter in the Penetrator instead of a few pounds of paper.”

 

“Self-destruct mechanism is armed,” Tailwind said. “Plant the Penetrator right up Cobra Commander’s ass, willya?”

 

***

 

Presidential Palace

Baghdad, Iraq

0801 hours, local time

 

“Take cover!” a Flak-Viper shouted, as Cobra Neo-Vipers and Vipers piled onto Cobra Commander to shield him from the vocalized warning. The black shape turned toward the palace and soared over the awning. There was a loud crash with sounds of breaking glass after a few tense heartbeats. Small shards of broken window material rained on the awning, making a pitter-patter sound as if rain had fallen.

 

“What the hell was that?” Cobra Commander yelled while thrashing about on the ground, under the crushing weight of a pair of burly Neo-Vipers in their ceramic composite body armor. “Get your goddamn bodies off me and let me up!”

 

“The drone crashed into the palace,” a Flak-Viper reported. “It took out some windows on the third floor!”

 

Cobra Commander stepped out from under the awning and looked up at the plume of black smoke that was coming from the residential suites on the third floor. His decoy wasn’t standing in the window any longer, and the glass had been smashed out.

 

“It’s a good thing that I put a decoy Viper up there in one of my cowls and capes,” the Commander said with a sigh of relief. “I knew whoever was behind this was after me...”

 

Just as the Commander breathed his relief, a loud explosion ripped through the third floor of the palace, sending hot orange flames out all the broken windows. The three pounds of plastique wired to the Penetrator’s self-destruct mechanism was sufficient to atomize the UAV and completely destroyed the Commander’s suite to boot.

 

Cobra Commander felt the Neo-Vipers toppling onto him once more and his face was mashed into the soft grass of the yard. When the explosion abated, the Commander was helped onto his feet, and the frustrated megalomaniac drew his sidearm and shot the overzealous Neo-Vipers between their eyes.

 

“Sir,” a Flak-Viper said, cowering when the Commander swung the barrel of his smoking pistol in his direction. He presented one of the leaflets the Penetrator UAV had dropped on the compound. “This is one of the leaflets, Commander.”

 

Cobra Commander read the message printed on the leaflet and screamed with frustration. “How dare the Joes be allowed to penetrate this far into the country and do this? How did you Cretins allow them to detonate a drone inside my bedroom window?” He stormed off towards an entrance to the underground command center underneath the palace, stopping once to turn and shoot the Flak-Viper that had presented him with the leaflet to ease his anger.

 

“Summon the Baroness over at Saddam Military Prison!” Cobra Commander yelled to one of the Tele-Vipers nearby, who nodded his understanding. “I want the two Joes she has in Section Seven terminated immediately! No excuses! I don’t care if she’s broken them or not! She must kill those Americans today!” He stomped around a bit, occasionally glancing up at the burning suite he had wisely vacated, fuming over his intense hatred of the Joes. He looked down at his soldiers once a plan had formed in his head.

 

“Someone get me that fuckin’ mercenary Wild Weasel on the phone!” the Commander bellowed into the underground command bunker’s passageway, as Cobra troopers scattered to get out of his way. “I want every airfield along the border to prepare for an Alpha Strike on the American air base at Hafr-al-Batin! The Joes are there, and I want REVENGE!”

 

The Neo-Viper Captain in charge of the Commander’s protective detail shook his head and shrugged in the direction of his still-living Neo-Vipers and Viper soldiers. Before dismissing his men to help the Iraqi firefighters that were responding to the UAV explosion, he picked up the leaflet, which was shaped like the usual American “Safe Conduct Passes” that their PSYOPS units distributed over the battle lines to encourage surrender.

 

There was a very simple, hand-scrawled message in English crudely photocopied on both sides. It read: “Cobra Commander, you took our friends. We’re coming for you.” Under the handwritten line, General Tomahawk had signed the note with his code name.

 

***

 

Main Yard

Saddam Military Prison

0815 hours, local time

 

Crypto was becoming nervous that Lieutenant Deming hadn’t sent Vipers to sweep the unsecured area between the motor pool and the main gate yet. He suspected that he had either interdicted them better than he originally thought, or that they were coming from a direction he hadn’t considered, and were about to jump him. Even worse, the enemy might have sent a sniper to hunt him down and his life was being measured in heartbeats.

 

He swept the immediate area quickly with his eyes and kept his AK-47 ready to fire. The only useful thing Crypto saw was a sewer cover that led down into a drainage tunnel. He checked the solid steel cover and it wasn’t locked or secured.

 

Crypto was content to spend some of his time playing a waiting game. It gave him time to rest and take stock. His leg wound wasn’t bleeding badly and a cursory look at it told him that it was mainly a painful flesh wound.

 

He tore some burlap from the makeshift rucksack that he was carrying his ammo in and folded it into a reasonable facsimile of a compression bandage. He ripped a small patch of cotton fabric from his tee shirt and pressed it into the gash Deming’s bullet had opened, to soak up any of the oozing blood before tying the burlap tightly around his thigh.

 

As he was finishing up with his wound, Crypto noticed a cluster of Vipers assembling in the secured compound. Lieutenant Deming and the Baroness were with the group, motioning for soldiers from Section Seven to drag a man-sized shape forward.

 

“Damn,” Crypto thought to himself. “They’re bringing Flint out.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he watched the soldiers drag Flint into the yard and then simply sit him on the sand-blown grass with his hands chained behind him.

 

Crypto considered the obvious possibility – that Flint’s movement was a trap to get him out of cover where a sniper could tag the both of them, or where the Baroness could shoot both Joes in the head conveniently. However, if he played his cards right, perhaps he could take them by surprise, and they could escape. Deming and the Baroness had arrogantly made Crypto’s task easier.

 

The sound of buzzing rotor blades drew Crypto’s attention, along with the Cobras inside the exercise yard. A FANG II tiltrotor descended into the prison compound and landed right next to where the Baroness and Lt. Deming were standing. Instantly, the Vipers who had dragged Flint out of Section Seven were right on top of him to keep him still.

 

The FANG II was a hack bird – modified from the single-seat attack model into a two-seater for utility purposes. Its pilot climbed out of the simple cockpit as soon as the rotor blades had spun down, saluting the Baroness when he reached her. Crypto strained to hear what was going on, and crawled along the wall of the power transformer to get closer without exposing himself.

 

The Baroness nodded at the Gyro-Viper’s stiff salute. “Why did you practically land on top of me, pilot?” she asked angrily. “Can’t you see I have a prisoner here? You’re a security risk!”

 

“Begging your pardon, Baroness,” the Gyro-Viper said. “I have an urgent dispatch from Cobra Commander, and I was ordered to personally insure that it was delivered to you.”

 

“Well, hand it over, lout,” the Baroness said, holding out her gloved hand impatiently.

 

The Gyro-Viper unfolded a document and laid it in the Baroness’s hand. She read it quickly and passed it to Lieutenant Deming. “Very well, pilot. You’ve done your job. You’re dismissed.”

 

“But, ma’am,” the Gyro-Viper said uneasily. “The Commander ordered me to personally see that you got the message.”

 

“I have received the message!” the Baroness yelled. “I understand that Cobra Commander wants the G. I. Joe prisoners eliminated! You can go! NOW!”

 

The Gyro-Viper gulped, and Crypto cringed when he heard that he and Flint were certainly going to die. “You don’t understand, ma’am,” the Cobra pilot said. “I have to see that it’s done.”

 

“That’s not going to happen for a long time,” the Baroness said quietly, almost whispering to the pilot. “The prisoners are way too valuable to kill on the Commander’s whims. They mean a lot more to us alive, even if they’re not talking or giving us viable intelligence. They, more so than any foreign civilians, can be an insurance policy to keep G. I. Joe air strikes away from critical sites, if the enemy thinks we’re holding them there. The G. I. Joe Team won’t risk the lives of their own people. Understand?”

 

The Gyro-Viper was torn, since he was loyal to Cobra Commander, and yet the Baroness had her hand on a pistol and was blatantly refusing to comply with orders.

 

Crypto didn’t wait to think any longer. He had to risk dying to make a bid for freedom. The FANG II was perfectly positioned and Flint was there. They would both live or both die, but he had to try. The officer hauled open the sewer cover and climbed down the rusty ladder rungs slowly into the old cement pipe work.

 

Crypto knew what direction he had to move, in order to get under the cyclone fencing and barbed wire, so he followed the large pipe past the utility plant and found a much larger sewer line, apparently a very old construction. The smell was horrendous and it set off Crypto’s gag reflex, but having little food during his stay in Section Seven gave Crypto very little to expel.

 

When Crypto got his dry heaving under control, he stepped out onto a ledge along the side of the sewer, without getting into the toxic flow leaving the prison. He found a large, open access port that was shaped like a stone well, which was covered by a lattice of iron bars. There were no grab irons, so Crypto rightly guessed that it was simply a drainage port.

 

The Joe officer hauled himself up the well using the jagged stone edges of the old structure. None of the Vipers spotted him when he slid back the iron lattice cover and slipped out onto the exercise yard. He didn’t wait for any of the Vipers milling around Flint to reach for their weapons.

 

Letting out a blood-curdling yell, Crypto charged into the guard detachment, firing his AK-47. His opening volley clipped a couple of guards in their legs, dropping them onto the grass.

 

The Baroness drew her pistol at the first sound of gunfire, dropping to one knee and looking for the direction it was coming from. “It’s the escaped prisoner!” she yelled. “He’s going for the FANG!”

 

The Gyro-Viper was determined not to let Cobra Commander down. He drew his pistol and backed up toward his FANG II, but leveled the weapon at Flint’s head.

 

Flint was dazed from the truth drugs and sedatives that the Baroness had used on him before bringing him topside, and had fallen sideways onto the ground.

 

Crypto charged forward, but his leg injury began to slow him down. There was no cover to hide behind, so he made himself as small a target as possible, dropping flat onto the ground and firing from a prone position.

 

Lieutenant Deming saw the Gyro-Viper aiming his pistol in Flint’s direction, and even though Crypto’s wild shooting had sent bullets whizzing close by, she decided to stick to the Baroness’s orders not to kill Flint and Crypto.

 

Deming’s pistol flashed out of its holster, and she shot the Gyro-Viper in the face at point blank range. The Gyro-Viper flopped backward into the cockpit of the FANG II and hung limply on the edge.

 

Crypto slowed his breathing and pulled the fire selector on his AK back to single-shot. Taking more careful aim, he fired deliberately, trying to keep his bullets away from Flint. He didn’t realize that the magazine was empty by the time he got himself under control.

 

The AK let out a hollow, empty click when the magazine ran dry, and Crypto reached for where he thought his remaining ammo supply was. The makeshift burlap rucksack wasn’t slung on his back where it should’ve been. Dejectedly, Crypto figured it had dropped into the sewer during his ascent up the old stone well, the sound masked by the rushing water.

 

The uninjured Vipers heard the firing stop suddenly, and were ready to act. They raced up to Crypto and piled on top of him, ripping the AK-47 from his grasp and landing several blows from their boots and fists to make Crypto more docile. The Joe officer screamed in pain when the Vipers battered his already torn body.

 

The Baroness motioned for two of her guards to take Flint back into Section Seven before he could get any ideas. “Can you handle him now, Lieutenant?”

 

“Most assuredly, Baroness,” Deming replied, walking over to Crypto and firing her pistol into the air to convince the Vipers it would be a deadly mistake to pummel the Joe to death.

 

“Well, well, well,” Deming said to Crypto, crouching on the ground to have a look at him. “You almost figured it out. It’s a surprise that you didn’t get yourself outside the walls by using the sewer and make good your escape. You are so predictable. I know your code of conduct, and that you Joes are all conditioned to never leave a buddy behind.”

 

Crypto moaned softly, his hazel eyes fluttering as the pain of his wounds caused him to drift in and out of consciousness.

 

“I’m still going to have fun with you today,” Deming said, waving for her guards to drag Crypto back to the well-shaped sewer drainage hole. An Army-pattern supply truck, fitted with a hydraulic crane, backed up to the hole and the Vipers played out a length of the steel crane cable.

 

Deming reached into the back of the supply truck and produced a heavy, black plastic bag. “You know what this is, Crypto,” she said. “It’s a body bag. You’ve put some of my men in these today, so I think it’s fitting that you spend some time in one as well.”

 

Crypto found his voice, but it was weak. His face was pressed into the grass and he had to turn onto one cheek to speak. “I thought... the Baroness wanted... us alive...” he murmured.

 

“She does,” Deming said. “But just barely alive still counts.” She draped the body bag out on the ground and used a combat knife to cut a number of slits in the plastic. “Put him in,” she ordered, turning her thumb down.

 

The Vipers picked Crypto up roughly by his arms and legs, binding them together with metal shackles. Then they placed him facedown in the body bag and zipped it shut.

 

Deming brought over the cable from the truck’s crane and fed the chain from Crypto’s leg irons through the hook. A Viper at the crane controls switched the equipment on, and lifted Crypto up into the air.

 

The Viper on the crane controls rotated the small derrick until Crypto was dangling over the sewer access. Inside the body bag, the officer was eerily quiet. Deming turned down her thumb once more, and the crane operator slowly lowered Crypto into the sewer until Deming signaled him to stop.

 

Crypto couldn’t see anything past the black plastic, other than slits of sunlight fading into darkness. He heard the sewer’s rushing water and smelled the indescribable foul stench of the human and organic wastes the sewer carried.

 

Then it felt damp all around him. Water rushed in through the slits in the body bag and pushed the air up toward his feet. As the air was squeezed out of the body bag, the natural pressure of the water around him compressed the bag until it clung to Crypto like a membrane.

 

He hadn’t taken the chance to draw in a breath, and when he felt the water pressing the plastic against him, he panicked. When he tried to draw in air, all his mouth tasted was rancid sewer water and plastic.

 

Cobra knew he was slightly claustrophobic, and the thought of a plastic body bag closing in on him drove him over the edge. He desperately tried to draw a breath, flexing and thrashing about to try to bend and bring his torso up out of the water.

 

Crypto lost track of how many seconds he had been subjected to the sewer dip, but after thirty seconds of watching his flailings, Deming ordered the crane operator to haul him up.

 

The crane rotated back over dry ground, and Deming had the crane operator release the hook, dropping Crypto onto the grass. Most of the Vipers stood away when they smelled the foulness that Crypto had been drenched in, until Deming walked up to him with her combat knife and cut the body bag away.

 

Crypto rolled on the ground painfully, coughing up water and everything he had ingested while trying to breathe in the sewer. Deming simply watched him writhe and laughed.

 

“I’ve decided that I like this sewer dunking treatment,” she said evilly. “Perhaps we should do this to you a few times a day until you talk.”

 

Crypto didn’t react. He strained to suck in every breath that he could as his nostrils tried to resist the sewer stench and his guts tried to keep from heaving. His whole body ached at the same time, and he was afraid that the bullet grazing might get infected from being exposed to who-knew-what in the rancid wastewater.

 

Deming waved for the Vipers to come closer. “Take him to the delousing shower and hose him off. Let the Medi-Viper have a look at him once he’s been cleaned up. Find him some fresh clothes that fit, and get him back into Section Seven.”

 

***

 

“Quarterback 307”

  1. S. Air Force E-3B Sentry AWACS



30,000 feet over the Saudi-Iraqi frontier

1000 hours, local time[1]

 

“Senior Controller! Red Flock! Red Flock!” one of the radar sector operators called out excitedly when his radar surveillance of several Cobra front-line airstrips went from all clear to scores of red blips instantly filling his screen. Accustomed to talking with the patrolling fighter pilots, the sector operator used the standard BRASH brevity code when he delivered his report to the senior duty controller. “Fifty-plus bogeys from the north and northwest. Seventy miles, at Angels Ten, cruising at three hundred knots on heading one-three-five.”

 

The senior duty controller, an Air Force captain, looked over the radar operator’s display and keyed his portable intercom to contact an in-flight communications specialist elsewhere in the Sentry’s crew compartment. “God damn it! Sound a red alert to all sectors! Advise the air bases at Hafr-al-Batin, As-Salimiyah and Kuwait City International Airport to scramble fighters immediately! Put a call out to the reserve interceptors at Tabuk, Riyadh, Al-Jaber, Ali Al-Salem, and Dhahran! Get all of our patrols vectored up to the border and scramble all Navy and Marine ass-kickers for this furball! A major enemy air movement is inbound! Rough blip count is sixty! That’s four to five squadrons’ worth!”

 

Several communications operators jumped right on the captain’s orders, burning up the radio airwaves along with the controller teams that were guiding American, British and Saudi interceptors as close to the border as they dared.

 

Since the Cobras were simply flying and not crossing the border or engaging Allied ground positions, the standing rules of engagement limited the intercept aircrews’ initiative in the tracking and pursuit of the possible bandits. But when the stream of red blips moved like a swarm of killer bees towards the border and Hafr-al-Batin Air Base, the ‘defensive’ rules of engagement didn’t last long.

 

***

 

Cobra Alpha Strike (Rattler Element)

1,500 feet over the Saudi-Iraqi frontier

1000 hours, local time

 

“Okay, squadrons, keep it tight,” Wild Weasel ordered over the Strike frequency, which allowed him to command the formations and listen to the individual squadron and flight leaders’ reports. “The lead off squadron of Hurricanes will sweep the airfield and strafe everything they see, then join the top cover. All other Hurricane elements will assume high-altitude cover directly. Begin stacking in flights at five cherubs increments from Angels Ten. Rattler attack units will drop to Cherubs Five and separate into finger-four groups, thirty seconds apart, as soon as we have the air base’s outer marker on our VORTAC transponder. Attack elements, pre-program your approach beacons to the Hafr-al-Batin navigation aids channel.”

 

One by one, the squadron and flight leaders reported in, acknowledging Wild Weasel’s commands. The Cobra mercenary pilot took in a three hundred—and-sixty-degree sweep, spotting the trio of Rattlers in his flight behind him in a loose deuce formation. One Rattler hung just off Wild Weasel’s left wing, below and behind the attack force leader. The second pair of attack bombers flew about a quarter mile to the right of the lead Rattler. The rest of the sixteen attack planes in the strike package were nestled in the clouds, approaching Hafr-al-Batin from slightly different angles.

 

While the “strike package” under Wild Weasel’s personal command was outfitted for air-to-ground attack, the other five squadrons of Cobra aircraft that had been scrambled were all Hurricane tactical fighters assigned to Combat Air Patrol.

 

Spread out vertically over the approach route to the Joes’ home airfield, the fighters and their Aero-Viper and Strato-Viper pilots were appointed the task of overwhelming the Allied air defenses. Having so many planes in the air would force the defending fighter patrols to waste time, energy and weapons on intercepting the faster and more maneuverable Hurricanes, so the Rattlers could sneak through the early warning line unfettered, at extremely low altitude.

 

“Hurricane Leader to Strike Leader,” the senior-ranked fighter pilot called from the Hurricane group. “We’re stacked at angels high. Distant contacts converging on our course. We have enemy bandits approaching in small numbers.”

 

“Roger that, Hurricane Leader,” Wild Weasel replied. “Keep the interceptors busy; we’re beginning our descent to Cherubs Five. Strike elements, get your noses into the dirt! COBRAAA!”

 

***

 

  1. I. Joe Flight Operations Area



Hafr-al-Batin Air Base

1010 hours, local time

 

Built inside a corrugated steel Quonset hut, near the hardened aircraft shelters that the G. I. Joe combat planes occupied, the pilots’ ready room had already become cramped for all the personnel that were becoming accustomed to standing their alert duties there.

 

Many of the regular Joe fighter pilots and a handful of Green Shirt aviators pulling routine transport duties were relaxing in the pilots’ ready room. The Green Shirts who were flight-qualified were charged with moving personnel, supplies and equipment between Hafr-al-Batin and the _U.S.S. Flagg_ battle group, Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, or Dhahran on the edge of the Persian Gulf.

 

For some of the jet jockeys, they were simply killing time in front of one of the few televisions on the base that could get decent channels through the Joes’ satellite network connections. For others, the air-conditioned comfort of the ready room sure beat supervising the pre-flight checks for US-3B “Viking COD” or MC-141B Special Operations “Star Lifter” transports on the already stifling hot tarmac of the flight lines. For the remainder, it was where their alert status required them to be, geared up and ready to dogfight if Cobra came south from Iraq.

 

Ace had been happily taking some of the rookie Green Shirts for a ride with Slipstream in cahoots, as they rattled off winning hand after winning hand of five-card stud. The two fighter jocks were raking in quite a hefty sum of pay chits and cash from the rookies and a quintet of transient Navy E-2C “Hawkeye” Airborne Early Warning and Control flight crewmen.

 

The Navy regulars had been recycling their aircraft on the Joes’ service ramp before they had to take off on the last leg of a run from Bahrain to KKMC and the _U.S.S. Flagg_ with classified mail and courier cargo, when Slipstream had challenged them to pitch their cash in. Unfortunately for the Bluejacket fliers, they were too willing to go in for ‘just one round’.

 

Ace tipped his clear, green plastic visor up on his forehead while he slapped another winning poker hand onto the folding table. He chewed on an unlit Cuban stogie happily, since the ready room had a well enforced “no smoking” policy. “That’s a full boat, boys!” the Air Force Major said. “Read ‘em and weep! Three bitches over two admirals!”

 

“Why can’t you call a queen a queen, and an ace an ace, Ace?” Slipstream asked, realizing all too late that his question sounded rather ridiculous.

 

“My name is Ace, Slipstream,” Ace replied. “And don’t wear it out. Besides, I was trying to be hospitable to these here sailors. They play poker with a lot saltier jargon than we landlubbers do. Where else but on a warship can you find a rousing game of “bullshit” going on? Besides, we owe them something considering they’re about to be wiped out of two months’ worth of flight pay...”

 

All of a sudden, the electrical power that most of the main overhead lights, stereo, television, and refrigerators were plugged into was cut, with the room lighting being replaced automatically by low-emission red spotlights from the emergency power circuit.

 

For a few heartbeats, the only sounds outside the Quonset hut were the distant peals of thunder from Rattlers firing short-range rockets at the air base’s northern perimeter, and the rat-tat-tat of Oerlikon and Vulcan guns opening up on the ground. When the main power circuits came back up, the ready room pilots all heard the loud, blaring horn of the base’s air raid alarms.

 

“Holy shit! Scramble alert!” Slipstream yelled, accidentally bumping into the round gaming table and causing many of the poker chips and cash to be mingled into a large pile in Ace’s lap, or to spill onto the floor. “Let’s get to the planes!”

 

Ghost Rider, Maverick, Dogfight, Mud-Mover, Cool-Hand and Sky-Striker rolled out of their couches and recliners, quickly reaching for the few pieces of gear they needed to become flight-ready. Zephyr charged out of the head, half in and half out of his flight suit, swearing in Greek about who in the hell had killed all the lights, and fell silent as he saw the rush of activity. He raced for the hangars on the heels of his fellow fighter drivers, struggling to get his Nomex flight suit into place and zipped up.

 

The Joe pilots emerged from the ready room and had to cross a street and part of the aircraft parking ramps to get to the fighter shelters. Charging out the ready room doorway one by one and brandishing their automatic pistols, they ran for their hangars in a crouch, as the whine of the approaching Rattler formations above grew louder and louder.

 

Crew chiefs and plane captains emerged from the shelters, waving M-16 rifles and shouting for the pilots to hurry their asses up, while Saudi air defense troops in wheeled personnel carriers moved their Crotale NG air defense systems into position. Reserve teams made up of American, British and Saudi ground service personnel raced for the few fixed 20mm and 40mm gun emplacements, or clustered in designated areas to draw machine guns and portable missile systems.

 

“Come on, Joes!” Ace urged, holding open a steel door in the side of the hardened aircraft shelter for his fellow pilots. “Get the hell over here and find your planes!”

 

***

 

“Flag Country”

_U.S.S. Flagg, CVN-99_

1015 hours, local time

 

Admiral Keel-Haul ran from his quarters in the staff area known as “Flag Country”, where he commanded the Carrier Battle Group that was based around the _U.S.S. Flagg_. Alarms and klaxons rang around him as the carrier began to man battle stations, and the CVBG commander found his operations officer in the Flag Information Center, hunched over the lighted map table in the center of the space.

 

“Report!” Keel-Haul called out, and the FIC fell silent.

 

“Admiral, there’s a major Cobra air attack inbound, towards Hafr-al-Batin Air Base,” the OPSO replied. “They’ve launched several squadrons against the border at once. The AWACS on patrol over the border is calling for all available assistance.”

 

“Where do we stand?” Keel-Haul asked.

 

“Captain Tomlinson is singling us up for action,” the OPSO said. “He’s ordered general quarters and air operations stations to be manned. The CAG and Air Boss are already moving every flyable fighter up to the flight deck. All four steam catapults are available, so we can get the fighting complement off the deck in about fifteen minutes.”

 

“There’s a Marine Harrier section on board that was in the Air Boss’s way,” the OPSO added. “Getting the yellow shirts to marshal them to the other end of the flight deck is causing a delay, but we’re otherwise ready to launch everything we have.”

 

“What about the rest of the battle group’s status?” the admiral asked.

 

“ _Chancellorsville_ is ready on the data link to take over all three-dimensional air scanning over the battle group,” the OPSO said. “The frigates and destroyers have opened up to tactical range and are under orders to prosecute all contacts. The subs have also moved out to their usual hunting grounds. A number of patrol ships docked in Bahrain are steaming north to join us in case this is the preamble for a larger action. We’ve scrambled two, E-2C’s to provide air traffic control for the fighters until they hand off to the Air Force AWACS people. _Mitscher_ and _Chancellorsville_ have launched their Seahawks to act as plane guards until the scramble is complete. We have vectored all incoming planes to Bahrain to refuel and suspended all recoveries until the relief force is airborne.”

 

“Very well,” Keel-Haul said. “Good work, Commander. Make sure we launch KS-3 tankers to cover the inbounds that are bingo fuel and can’t divert without gas. I just hope our wing gets to the base in time.”

 

“CAG is going up to take charge personally,” the OPSO reported. “He won’t let the Joes down.”

 

***

 

Hafr-al-Batin Air Base

Saudi Arabia

1025 hours, local time

 

“Use Zone Five on the afterburners as soon as you reach the runway threshold,” Ace ordered over the radio to his flight members as the G. I. Joe pilots’ X-35 Joint Strike Fighters, F/A-18E Super Hornets and F-22A Raptor air-superiority fighters began to spin up their engines. When the first of the jets’ noses poked out of the hardened aircraft shelters, the pilots paused before starting their movements out onto the taxiways so that a strafing Cobra Rattler wouldn't manage a lucky pass and tag all of them at once.

 

Two large MC-141B Special Operations Star Lifters and the Navy US-3B “Viking COD” and E-2C “Hawkeye” AEW&C planes undergoing refueling services were parked in the open and had miraculously not taken any damage yet from the attacking Cobra planes. Scores of ground crewmen braved the debris and weapons fire to get the large, unwieldy transports towed out of the departing fighters’ way.

 

“Watch the FOD on Taxiway Charlie Two,” Ghost Rider warned as he rolled his F-22A out of the hardened aircraft shelter where the fighter had been parked, and onto the main aircraft service ramp. “There's a Saudi Tornado that got its wings clipped and slid into the rough ground by the apron! And our MC-141B’s are sitting ducks out here!”

 

A handful of American and Saudi aircraft caught on the ground during the Cobra Hurricanes’ initial penetration and strafing runs were lying crippled on some of the taxiways. The presence of the damaged birds forced the operable aircraft to take zigzag routes and rely on the surviving ground controllers in the wrecked primary control tower for guidance to get to the main runways and scramble into the air battle.

 

The base’s tension was high since everyone knew that the dedicated ground attack Rattlers were on the way and surely packing heat. Crash rescue and maintenance teams bravely rolled onto the field in unarmed vehicles, the personnel only sharing what rifles and M-249 squad automatic weapons they could grab for self-protection.

 

The Saudi air base defense squadron and two U.S. Air Force security police squadrons spread their Cadillac-Gage Peacekeeper, M-113A2, LAV-300 and M-1114 Armored Hummer vehicles as thinly as they could afford to. The base defense force also deployed automatic weapons and Stinger missile teams into pre-constructed positions to cover the main runways, fuel dump and ordnance warehouses.

 

“Everyone scramble!” Ace called into the radio while the whine of his F-22A twin turbines echoed in the concrete aircraft shelter. “Get your sorry asses into the air and kick some Cobra butt!”

 

“Slipstream is at Ground Point One, commencing taxi rollout,” Slipstream reported, pushing the throttles in his F-22A forward as sunlight shone into his glazed cockpit canopy. “Cool-Hand and Mud-Mover are pulling out right behind me.”

 

When the sleek shapes of the Joe aircraft emerged from their hardened aircraft shelters and protected parking revetments, teams of Green Shirts rode alongside the planes in AWE-Strikers and pointed Star-streak HVM and Stinger portable air defense missiles skyward. As the black shapes of Cobra Hurricane fighters swept low over the sky, the Green Shirt crews fired their short-range weapons into the air to keep the enemy planes from strafing their buddies.

 

Maverick and Sky-Striker got to the end of the main runway first and throttled up the afterburners of their X-35 Joint Strike Fighters. Maverick could see, just off his left wing, the sleek gray nose of Zephyr's F/A-18E Super Hornet rolling into position for a group takeoff on the broad asphalt landing strip.

 

“Maverick, Sky-Striker and Zephyr are commencing takeoff roll. We're at zone five on the 'cans!” Maverick reported, waving and snapping a salute to an emergency fire fighting crew that had parked their Oshkosh foam cannon truck near the runway threshold. The crash rescue men waved their best wishes while a 35mm ‘Sky Guard’ gun crew chattered away into the air to provide cover.

 

While the other Joe pilots maneuvered their aircraft down the serviceable taxiways to the takeoff strip, Maverick, Sky-Striker and Zephyr climbed into the sky, riding on twin plumes of tail fire.

 

“Lock and load on the way up, pilots,” Maverick ordered, reaching out to his own control panel with his gloved hand to engage the Master Arm switch for his aerial weapons. “The Cobras are almost within striking range and their Hurricanes are tying the interceptors up! We have to keep the Rattlers from dumping ordnance on the air base! YO, JOE!”

 

“Jesus, Maverick, look at the furball up there,” Zephyr mumbled into the radio he had set to the flight's inter-plane channel. “The Saudi Tornadoes and F-15's are getting their asses handed to them!”

 

“Our boys won't do much better if AWACS doesn't get their shit wired and stop sending the interceptors in piecemeal,” Sky-Striker interjected. “The Cobras are outnumbering our patrols, dividing them up and wiping the skies with them through sheer firepower.”

 

The three pilots shared a moment of silence as they looked into the sky overhead, where dark shapes darted among the clouds, flitting about like a flock of birds in chaos. Every so often, one of the dark shapes would turn a bright red-orange, as its foe found a way to flame the combat jet or otherwise take it out of the dogfight.

 

A streak of black crossed Zephyr’s field of vision as a Hurricane fighter swept across the sky. Instinctively, the Marine pilot pulled hard on the trigger for his plane’s cannon. A stream of 20mm gun rounds burst from his nose gun and chopped through the enemy jet’s wing, slicing it completely off.

 

“Splash one Cobra!” Zephyr shouted, climbing his fighter through the falling debris and aircraft fragments. “Never screw with the Marines! YO, JOE!”

 

Maverick and Sky-Striker triggered their cannon simultaneously at a second Hurricane fighter that tried to approach them in a neutral nose-on pass. The Joes caught the Hurricane in a heavy crossfire, tearing the enemy plane apart in a fiery blast when its fuel and ordnance went up in smoke.

 

“Splash one Cobra!” Maverick yelled. “Half for you, Sky-Striker, and half for me!”

 

“Keep score later, Maverick,” Sky-Striker replied. “Keep fighting now! Watch your ten o’clock! An American F-15 is going down! Let’s decimate these assholes!”

 

“Roger that,” Maverick said, yanking his JSF into a tight and level turn. The pilot checked his radar and spotted the sections of Hurricanes splitting off to occupy different altitudes within the battle area. “The main body is spreading out into a high-low cover pattern. But they’re all fighters. When the F-22’s get up off the ground, Ace, Slipstream and Ghost Rider can play in the clouds.”

 

Maverick adjusted his Doppler look-down/shoot-down radar and found Wild Weasel’s group. “Zephyr, Dogfight, Sky-Striker, Cool-Hand and Mud-Mover. I’ve found the enemy Alpha Strike elements at Cherubs Five and rollin’ right for the base. They’re Rattlers tryin’ to bring bombs to our home. Let’s get those slitherin’ snakes in the sand!”

 

***

 

  1. I. Joe hardened aircraft shelter



Hafr-al-Batin Air Base

1035 hours, local time

 

“Swansong! Major Levinson!” a ground crewman shouted as he climbed out of the engine nacelle where he was working when the scramble began. “What are you doing here? The huts are no place to hide during an enemy bombing raid!”

 

“I’m a multi-engine, jet-rated civilian pilot, Master Sergeant,” Swansong replied calmly, slipping on a tight-fitting, olive green Nomex flight suit and fighter pilot’s gloves, which were well broken in from previous combat missions that she would never be able to tell a Joe about. “Can I help move the hangar queens clear of the shelter or taxi out one of the good birds for the pilots coming in from KKMC?”

 

The ground crew sergeant, seconded to the Joes from a veteran ground-attack fighter unit of the New York Air National Guard, waved at a lone F/A-18E Super Hornet that had been readied by special orders countersigned by General Tomahawk, loaded down with special air-to-ground weapons as a procedural drill. Swansong could tell that the ordnance mounted on the wings, four 2,225-pound bunker-busting JDAM Joint Direct Attack Munitions, was the stuff she had secretly cut the orders for. The Super Hornet also had two full drop tanks on the inboard wing pylons, and a single AGM-154 JSOW Joint Standoff Weapon along its centerline mount.

 

“Take that one and roll it to the loading pad,” the master sergeant said. “We’re gonna swap everything out for air-to-air. That was Cool-Hand’s bird, but he went up with the alert scramble in a ready fighter.”

 

“I’ll take care of it,” Swansong replied, running across the nearly emptied shelter and leaping the first third of the way up the Hornet’s boarding ladder. She scrambled into the pilot’s seat and strapped herself in, running through the Hornet’s emergency startup checklist from memory.

 

Just as her drill orders had specified, the plane was practically running already, the electrical power and flight systems energized by a gas-powered Auxiliary Power Unit. Ready for a long mission, the Super Hornet had both wing tanks, as well as the underwing drop tanks, fully loaded with JP-8 jet fuel. The APU also fed electricity to the weapons control and navigation computers, along with keeping the radios charged up for the pilot to taxi out on no notice. The bird was ready to bare fangs in the air, with the exception of lighting off the turbines.

 

The Green Shirt Master Sergeant had returned to his own task of getting an XP-14F Sky Striker in “Hangar Queen” status hooked up to a tow tractor, so that it could be parked as far into the shelter as possible for protection. Swansong’s hands darted back and forth across the control panels of the Super Hornet, flipping switches and pressing buttons.

 

The first sign of her successful pre-flight was the amber glow of three large multi-function displays situated in front of her as they powered up and began to show the engine start and combat mission navigation programs that had been fed into the fighter’s onboard computers during the drill. Somewhere in the guts of the aircraft, the fighter’s engine pre-starter had begun to hum as it drew electricity from the external APU and then spun up to generate its own internal power.

 

Swansong waved and blinked the Super Hornet’s formation lights to get the attention of another Green Shirt, a plane captain who was crossing the shelter. When the young naval Aviation Boatswain’s Mate arrived in his coveralls, she swirled her finger in the air, indicating that she wanted him to stand by while she started up her engines. The Green Shirt nodded and gave her a thumbs-up in response.

 

While blast sounds from the close air battle over Hafr-al-Batin echoed across the sky and streams of 30mm cannon fire from the strafing sections of Rattlers chipped at the parking ramp outside the shelter, Swansong radioed the plane captain on the ground.

 

“All clear around the ‘cans?” she asked.

 

“Clear,” the plane captain replied.

 

“Starting engine one!” Swansong reported, pressing the Ignite button on her engine controls cluster. The onboard pre-igniter whined as the first engine drew the needed power and began to turn the turbine fan. Within thirty seconds, the throaty roar of the General Electric F404 after-burning turbine burst from the tail of the Super Hornet.

 

After throwing a few switches and watching the fuel flow indicators, Swansong called out once more on the radio. “Starting two! Stand clear for immediate taxi!” The plane captain raced underneath the Super Hornet and pulled free the three sets of wheel chocks and then ran to the nose to show them to Swansong. When the second turbine growled and spat flame, the Green Shirt on the ground disconnected the APU and rapped on the power connection cover to make sure it was secured.

 

“APU secured, pilot!” the plane captain said. “You’re clear to exit! Stay away from the flying lead!”

 

With the plane captain walking beside the nose of the Super Hornet and watching for obstructions, Swansong nursed the throttle forward and tested the rudder pedals, which also steered the nose wheel of the fighter while taxiing. With a slight vibration, the throttles reached their sweet spot and the fighter started rolling. Swansong and the plane captain traded salutes after the ground crewman unplugged the fighter’s intercom headset, and she was on her way.

 

Swansong tuned into the ground controller channel, which she had expected to be full of chatter as the pilots queued up for takeoff. Oddly, the channel was silent. She turned on the cockpit voice recorder and the emergency radio recorders, so that there would be a complete re-creation of what was going on.

 

“Ground Control, this is Strike Two-zero-niner. Holding short at ground point five. Request taxi instructions to main runway for scramble departure,” Swansong said, fully aware that the precious seconds it took to call the tower put her at risk.

 

A loud explosion rolled like a peal of thunder overhead, and Swansong saw a column of orange rising from the tallest control tower. A Cobra Rattler, hit by one of the medium-range Crotale NG air defense missiles being used by the Saudi base defense squadron, had lost control from the Saudi missile severing its tail planes. The Strato-Viper pilot opted to do a suicide run into the main tower, detonating the four tons of ordnance still on his wings in a massive fireball.

 

“Aw, screw it,” Swansong said to herself, goosing the throttles to full military power. She steered her Super Hornet clear of the burning tower and the concrete debris raining down on the exposed ground crewmen and airfield support equipment. “Strike two-zero-niner at Ground Point Five. I’m rolling out for immediate takeoff! YO, JOE!”

 

***

 

“Angels Ten”

10,000 feet over Hafr-al-Batin Air Base

1040 hours, local time

 

“Yahoo! That makes three!” Ace yelled to Slipstream. The pair of fighter drivers banked through a cluster of light, wispy clouds after the G. I. Joe flight leader had finished blowing a Cobra Hurricane fighter to kingdom come.

 

“I’m rolling right,” Slipstream replied. “Locking onto his wingman.” His F-22A Raptor danced on its vectored thrust engines as Captain Boyajian spun the agile fighter over on its right wingtip and then dove after the sleek, black Cobra aircraft.

 

Red-hot fire emanated from the high-velocity General Electric 20mm M-61A1 gun in the nose of Slipstream’s plane, tracing streaks of color through the light blue sky. “I’ve got the bastard bracketed!” Slipstream yelled, bringing the radar-projected flight vector of the enemy fighter and the sight pipper on his heads-up display together. He gently squeezed the trigger on his control stick once more, and the nose of the Raptor shuddered as the gun barrels spat another dose of lead and steel.

 

Slipstream’s calculated efforts yielded a bright orange explosion when his gunfire tore through the ceramic composite skin of the Hurricane and violently cooked off its wing tanks full of volatile jet fuel.

 

“Where’s the backup from the _Flagg_?” Ghost Rider seethed, jerking his Raptor into a roll and “half Cuban eight” maneuver to avoid a Russian-made AA-10 Alamo air-to-air missile launched by one of the Cobra planes. “Both sides are getting chewed up out here! We need an edge!”

 

“They’re launching everything they have, and so are the reserve bases along the front,” Ace replied, jinking hard into a nine-gee knife-pass to avoid a quartet of Hurricanes. “We have to hold as long as we can!”

 

“Ace, this is Maverick. We’ve splashed six Rattlers so far, and two have gone down to ground fire,” Maverick reported over the chattering sound of his nose gun. “But the air base has been hit hard. The tower’s gone off the air and I think some of the bad guys launched stand off ordnance at the runways. We may have trouble landing and rearming to defend against a second wave, if there’s one on the way.”

 

***

 

Swansong reached the yellow directional arrows painted on the threshold of the main runway, and made her final turn onto the takeoff strip. Without braking or cutting back on her throttle, she turned hard onto the runway, as the thick rubber tires on her landing gear squealed on the hot asphalt surface.

 

The twin tail cones attached to her Super Hornet’s F404 engines opened all the way, like the irises of a person’s eyes, and the insides glowed orange as the afterburners sprayed jet fuel into the superheated air behind the turbine’s reaction chamber, increasing the thrust output of the engines.

 

“Strike two-zero-niner to Departure Control. I’m outta here.” Major Levinson jammed the throttle lever all the way forward, forcing it against the stops while the Hornet vibrated and rumbled under the maximum power of its engines. It rolled forward and accelerated to just over a hundred fifteen knots, before Swansong rotated the attack plane and got it off the ground. While her Hornet climbed out, Swansong popped the radio transmitter’s fuse and kept talking into her flight recorder.

 

“Setting flight level Cherubs Eight, and going supersonic until I cross the border. I’ll be downtown in an hour and a half.” Swansong reported into her flight recorder, taking a few short breaths to relax her lungs and settling into her seat as the Super Hornet broke the sound barrier with a loud boom. She also flipped the switch for her Identify Friend or Foe (IFF) transponder to the off position, so the signal wouldn’t give away her identity. “I’m accelerating to Mach one-point-one. Camp Al-Shu’a is the strike target; initial point is in fifty-eight minutes. All weapons are safe.”

 

***

 

“Zephyr to flight lead,” Zephyr radioed as he victory-rolled his Super Hornet after flaming a Rattler and forcing it to crash into the desert floor. “I think we have a Cobra bugging out to the north. Low flying contact outbound from the base at Cherubs Eight and punching up the separation speed.”

 

“I thought we had all the Rattlers bottled up,” Maverick replied. “Are you sure it’s not one of ours who hasn’t squawked in with Quarterback Three-oh-seven?”

 

“Can’t say for sure,” Zephyr replied. “I can’t read an IFF on the new bogey. Must be a retreating Cobra.”

 

“Contact the Sentry and have them run a check of the radio logs,” Maverick ordered. “Stay on this channel and keep your eyes open. Hurricane formations are coming down to play chicken with us.”

 

“Roger that,” Zephyr said, switching his auxiliary radio to the AWACS control channel. “Quarterback Three-oh-seven, this is Wicked One-oh-niner. What do you have on the northbound bogey in the bushes?”

 

“Three-oh-seven here,” a combat controller replied from the E-3B Sentry. “We’re trying to figure that bogey out ourselves. We recorded a ground point departure report from a F/A-18E Super Hornet, call sign Strike Two-zero-niner, but no subsequent radio contact. Fighters have been taking off sporadically from Hafr-al-Batin and we’re having trouble getting them all identified until they squawk into the air battle. We’ve interrogated the bogey and it’s coming up zeroes on the IFF.”

 

“Strike Two-zero-niner is my Super Hornet,” Cool-Hand called from the X-35 JSF he was flying. “Someone is moving my plane around!”

 

“Can it, Cool-Hand!” Maverick nearly shouted over the flight’s channel. “Check your six and then form up on me! Break right and push over; there’s eight Hurricanes diving for the deck!”

 

“Wicked One-oh-niner requests permission to pursue unknown bogey and identify it by visual,” Zephyr said. “Range is ten miles and opening.”

 

“Permission denied, One-zero-niner,” the Sentry controller said. “You’ve got your own problems. Change your vector to zero-nine-zero and climb to Angels Two-point-five. There’s a Saudi F-15S who just lost his wingman and needs to be bailed out of trouble. Engage all descending Cobra fighters upon locating them.”

 

“Roger that,” Zephyr said. “Tally ho. Rolling left to zero-nine-zero and climbing to flight level as instructed.”

 

***

 

“Wicked One-oh-five to any Wicked call sign,” Sky-Striker said, yanking back hard on his control stick and pulling his X-35 JSF into a ballistic climb. “I’ve got two Cobras coming hard on my six and sniffin’ for blood! Tell NASA I’ll be in their bailiwick real soon!”

 

“Easy, Sky-Striker,” Ghost Rider replied. “I have you on radar. I’ll cross your track at Angels nine.”

 

Sky-Striker’s Joint Strike Fighter climbed quickly to 9,000 feet while Ghost Rider turned his F-22A into a wide loop, observing as two black shapes climbed behind the sea gray JSF.

 

“I have visual,” Ghost Rider said. “Tally ho; two Hurricanes in vertical climb at Angels Nine. I’m engaging from the north. Break left, Sky-Striker; I’ll clean your tail for you.”

 

Sky-Striker’s JSF wheeled around on its left wingtip when the pilot combined stick and rudder movements to pull a tight rolling turn. The Hurricanes were passable in level turns and endowed with decent climbing speed and a powerful onboard arsenal of air superiority weapons. However, they were hard-pressed to do difficult combat turns compared to the Joint Strike Fighters, which were designed around agility and the ability to out-maneuver any conventional opponents.

 

Many of the best Cobra pilots had to have special training and even special implants to aid them in surviving the high-gee, violent turns when the stolen and highly-experimental fly-by-wire technology put the planes into rotations that the structures could handle, but the pilots couldn’t. Cobra never invested or cared much about the “human factors” of flying. They simply found expedient results, no matter the cost.

 

Sky-Striker grunted and puffed to keep his lungs from being crushed under the nine and a half gees of pressure being exerted on his body. His ‘speed jeans’, a special component of his flight gear, inflated automatically to protect his body from blood pooling that could induce gravity loss of consciousness (G-LOC), more commonly referred to as “red-out” and “black-out”, depending upon the severity of the conditions.

 

Although less-experienced pilots who took high-gee turns too far ended up a mile-long black smear on the ground, Sky-Striker was able to stay in control when he felt his tolerance point coming, and he leveled his wings to ease the forces on his body. In the few seconds that he held the tight turn, the Hurricanes had rolled out of firing position, and he was almost far enough around to get on their tails and turn the hunters into the hunted.

 

“Come on baby,” Sky-Striker whispered in between huffs. “Lock up. I owe you snakes a big, sloppy one each...” The Hurricanes slowly came together with the radar vectors on his HUD, and Sky-Striker flipped the thumb selector on his stick to MSL.

 

“I’m coming into your five o’clock, Sky-Striker,” Ghost Rider said. “If you want these two, they’re yours.”

 

“Yeah, Ghost Rider, I want ‘em bad,” Sky-Striker replied. “Targets locking up. Fox Four! Fox Four! Two away!”

 

A pair of AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles dropped from the X-35’s internal weapons bay and streaked towards the Cobra Hurricanes. The enemy pilots had run out of luck. Both Hurricanes exploded into thousands of fiery fragments when the high explosive warheads aboard the AMRAAM missiles tore through their wing tanks and set off the experimental trinitro-benzine fuel inside.

 

“Wahoo!” Sky-Striker exclaimed. “Look at those Cobras fry!”

 

“Great shooting, Sky-Striker,” Ghost Rider said dispassionately, rolling his plane to the right and diving for his next quarry. “Don’t pat yourself on the back yet; we’ve got lots more where they came from.”

 

***

 

South-central Iraqi Desert

Cherubs Eight (800 feet AGL)

1100 hours, local time

 

Swansong altered her flight track slightly to avoid an Iraqi Army desert camp by giving the rudder pedals of her Super Hornet a light kick to the right. Rolling into a bank, she turned to a northerly heading, after having flown a zigzag course from KKMC northwest to the Euphrates River and then due west, away from the bulk of Cobra and Iraqi defenses.

 

Settling back into her seat and wiggling her torso to get comfortable in the new position, Swansong engaged the auto-pilot and watched the status indicators on her AN/ALQ-99 Pave Knife jamming pods. She allowed the primary flight computer to navigate the Super Hornet through a series of way points designed to confuse any air defense radar sites as to her true position and heading when combined with the false radar returns being generated by the electronic counter-measures pods.

 

Unlike a typical radar jamming plane, the Super Hornet was carrying two ECM pods, one mounted to each of the port and starboard fuselage missile rails, just under the engine intakes. The pods were programmed to attack different types of enemy ADA systems. One was set to jam the air defense weapon tracking and acquisition radars belonging to the Iraqi ADA fire chains, while the other confused the more powerful Ground Control Intercept (GCI) radar systems that tactical controllers used to guide interceptors to their bandits. The GCI facilities were in vogue during the Cold War, when less sophisticated air forces lacked aerial command and control assets to protect their airspace.

 

Swansong paged through the colored graphics on her navigation system, which filled the large multi-function display in the center of her instrument panel. Then, she keyed the “Record” button for her cockpit voice recorder.

 

“Mission log,” the undercover Israeli Colonel said into her boom mic. “Thirty minutes into the flight plan. Deception phase of the penetration flight is complete. I’m feet dry and cruising at Cherubs Eight, under radio silence and EMCON black. Turning into the attack course for Camp Al-Shu’a and the Cobra Super Gun construction site. I’ve been sniffed by a few enemy defenses but the ECM jammers have done their jobs so far. I haven’t sprung any enemy fighter traps; perhaps the Cobras committed a hefty amount of their available front-line assets on the alpha strike against Hafr-al-Batin. I sure hope the G. I. Joe and Allied pilots don’t get their heads handed to them. I’ll record another update when I reach the initial point outside of Baghdad.”

 

***

 

Saudi Arabia

500 feet over Hafr-al-Batin Air Base

1100 hours, local time

 

“That’s great shooting, Maverick!” Zephyr cheered, as he lined up on the tail of a Rattler that had a smoking engine and was limping towards the Hafr-al-Batin main runway, the Cobra pilot intent on fulfilling his mission. The Marine officer and Super Hornet driver thumbed his missile trigger and released the last missile on his launch rails, an AIM-120 AMRAAM. “Bandit locked! Fox Four!”

 

The Rattler was smoking worse than the damage it had sustained, but the pilot didn’t know it. A plume of thick black was streaming from the attack plane’s right wing, where the engine had taken a lucky hit from a Saudi Tornado’s 30mm Aden gun pod. However, its wings were still festooned with the cylindrical shapes of Durandal high explosive, runway-cratering munitions.

 

The Strato-Viper behind the stick kept his plane on course, rocking the wings of his plane and changing direction as much as he dared, attempting to throw the incoming missile off his tail. Gunfire from the Rattler’s dorsal turret and small chaff packets threw up additional barriers to counter Zephyr’s missile shot.

 

“Main runway is in sight, Wild Weasel,” the Rattler pilot reported, as the AIM-120 exploded safely behind his injured plane, engulfed by a cloud of aluminum chaff. “I’m making my run in on two engines.”

 

“Give it all you’ve got, Strato-Viper!” Wild Weasel replied, banking his plane into a rolling turn to evade a pair of American F-15C fighters and line them up for a section of Hurricanes to eliminate. “We’ve lost everyone in the strike package except for you and me. And I’m not carrying runway denial weapons. You have to get through! COBRAAA!”

 

Zephyr swore to himself when the Rattler pressed on and his last missile had been expended. He jammed the weapons selector switch on his joystick to the top of its settings, marked ‘GUN’. He centered the jinking attack jet in the round sight pipper that was projected on his Heads-up Display, trying to keep the targeting reticle on the Rattler long enough to fire off a stream of 20mm rounds from his M-61A1 nose gun.

 

“Damn! This guy’s good!” Zephyr noted out loud as his bullets fell short of the Rattler’s tail. The pilot had to roll his plane sideways to avoid the dorsal gunner’s return fire. “I can’t even scare him off enough to miss his toss!”

 

“Keep on him,” Maverick ordered, twisting his head from side to side as he flew through an orange fireball that had been a Cobra Hurricane seconds before. “If he’s got area denial ordnance, our home base will be out of action and we’ll have to find a new place for our birds to roost!”

 

“I’m on him like white on rice,” Zephyr assured his section leader, throttling up to close the distance between his nose gun and the Rattler’s tail. “But he’s getting close. And the air base defenses have been hammered but good by the handful of planes that busted through.”

 

Zephyr fired another stream of 20mm at the Rattler, and hit pay dirt when the bullets slammed into the aft fuselage of the jet, shattering the Plexiglas gun turret and ripping the dorsal gunner inside to shreds. It wasn’t enough to bring the plane down, but it improved Zephyr’s odds of not getting shot at during his pursuit of the enemy plane.

 

A high-pitched warble sounded in Zephyr’s cockpit, while a series of red indicators flashed on his radar warning receiver board. “Damn!” Zephyr swore. “I’m being painted by ground to air! Don’t those mud crawlers know the difference between the good guys and the bad guys?”

 

Zephyr yanked hard on his stick, pushing the throttle forward to its stops. As the Super Hornet pitched back onto its afterburners, the fighter climbed nearly vertical as a Saudi Crotale NG surface-to-air missile lifted off its launching rail.

 

“SAM!” Zephyr shouted. “I’ve got a SAM on my six! Climbing out ballistic!” The attack pilot thumbed the release controls for his chaff and flare dispensers, spreading a cloud of aluminum strips and white-hot phosphorus flares behind him.

 

The Strato-Viper in the Rattler cockpit was shocked to see the Super Hornet on his tail go ballistic and abandon the pursuit. However, he didn’t have the luxury of time to wonder about it. The cannon hits his plane had endured were beginning to affect the flight characteristics and structural integrity. He had only one chance to cross the Hafr-al-Batin main runway and dump his weapons.

 

Electrical shorts sparked from behind panels and LED’s connected to his navigational and communications systems. Fortunately, the analog bus that controlled his weapons panel wasn’t hurt. Taking a glance around for unexpected AA gun sites or SAM launchers, the Strato-Viper flicked on his Master Arm switch and raised the safety cover over his joystick’s firing trigger. System failure alarms sounded all over his cockpit, as the main and backup flight computers failed. The pilot could only rely on his instincts and the simple set of analog instruments that still functioned.

 

“Wild Weasel, this is Rattler Four,” the Strato-Viper transmitted, hoping his radios were still working. Static burned in his headphones, but the pilot kept focused on staying aloft and the sound of his own voice kept him calm. “I have multiple system failures, but my weapons are armed on the racks and I’m able to drop. I’ll have to eyeball the toss when I reach the field, but my pursuer is gone. I estimate three miles to target.”

 

Zephyr rocketed almost straight up, the radar warning and SAM alarms annoying him as he glanced quickly over his shoulder every few seconds to spot the white smoke trail of the rising Crotale NG missile. He wasn’t sure what type of missile the friendlies had fired, but it was his best guess that its maximum range was getting close. As his altimeter rolled past ten thousand feet, Zephyr fired off another volley of flares and chaff and hauled back on his throttle to kill the afterburners.

 

The nose of his fighter was still pointed into the clear blue sky, until Zephyr rolled to the right and kicked his rudder pedals hard to execute a perfect pinwheel turn. He used the aerodynamic forces acting on his aircraft to effortlessly push the nose over without losing aerodynamic speed or engine power. Giving his directional compass and radar screen a quick check to home in on his Rattler, Zephyr put the F/A-18E into a screaming nosedive as the Saudi Crotale exploded harmlessly behind him.

 

“Zephyr, this is Maverick,” Maverick radioed while his plane was in mid-bank over a crashing Hurricane. “Zephyr, did that SAM catch you?”

 

“I’m okay, Maverick,” Zephyr replied. “And I’m going supersonic for the deck. I want that fuckin’ Rattler now! And I’m gonna wax him!”

 

Sparks continued to fly around the Strato-Viper’s cockpit, and he began to pull main bus fuses to protect what remained of his flight controls and engine gauges. Fortunately, his efforts to keep his Rattler airborne were rewarded when the sprawling concrete main runway became visible off the tip of his nose.

 

Thick columns of smoke and dust rose from where the main control tower and a number of Royal Saudi Air Force hangars stood, along with smaller fires around wrecks of Allied planes caught on the ground at the Cobra raid’s opening act. Ground vehicles and support personnel raced to and fro with weapons firing. They were like a colony of angry fire ants defending their overturned anthill and stinging everything in sight, when looking down from the air. Some were shooting directly at his plane, but the 5.56mm and 7.62mm rounds bounced off the armored titanium bathtub under his cockpit with little more than a clatter.

 

Rattler Four’s pilot nursed the throttle up to its maximum military power and pulled back on his stick, inching the nose skyward to gain a little more altitude for his bomb release. At least many of the alarms had gone silent when the Strato-Viper broke the electrical circuits. He could think better without the noise.

 

“Shit!” Zephyr swore when his eyes focused on the Rattler coming back into visual range. “The enemy’s pitching nose up! He’s about to toss!” The Super Hornet driver was still in a hard dive, and the g-forces were hammering at him as he tried to haul back on his stick and level off his descent. His lungs felt like deflated balloons and his muscles were heavy like lead as he struggled to stay composed. He puffed hard into his oxygen mask while his ‘speed jeans’ inflated to keep his blood from pooling.

 

Zephyr didn’t wait for his speed vector to cross the Rattler’s on his HUD. There was one chance to keep the enemy away. The cannon under his nose buzzed, cutting loose a steady stream of shells.

 

The Strato-Viper caught the black shape of Zephyr’s Super Hornet dropping out of the sun and into his slot, but his mission was completed. “Rattler Four, bombs away! Bombs away!” As Zephyr’s volley of shells stitched through the thinner skin of his main fuselage, ripping into both engines at once, the entire rack of six Durandal cratering munitions fell from their mounts. Rattler Four’s fuel tanks exploded before the Strato-Viper could reach from his stick down to the ejection handle between his legs.

 

“Yeah, baby!” Zephyr yelled. “Scratch another... Rattler...” His voice trailed off when he saw six dark shapes strike the air base runway and rip aircraft-sized holes in the concrete strip.

 

“What happened?” Ace asked over the radio, after reporting to the AWACS controllers that the highest altitude Hurricanes had been dispatched and the air superiority fighters were coming down to squeeze the others. “Zephyr, did the Rattler penetrate?”

 

“Dammit,” Zephyr replied. “I tagged him, but he cut loose and scored direct hits on our main runway. We might need a new home.”

 

“Son of a bitch,” Slipstream swore, checking his fuel gauges and rapping on the glass screen of the MFD that was displaying his systems statuses. “The closest airfields are Kuwait City International and Ali Al-Salem Air Base. We’re gonna have to break off soon. All that high-altitude jinking has me at bingo fuel if we have to put down anywhere other than Hafr-al-Batin.”

 

Ace frowned under his oxygen mask when he glanced at his own fuel gauges and saw that he only had a couple thousand pounds of go-juice in his wing tanks. “A lot of the surviving interceptors have already gone bingo gas and returned to their bases or called for an emergency in-flight tanking,” the flight leader said. “We can’t leave. Quarterback 307 says we’re all that’s left until the first wave of reserve fighters gets here.”

 

“Whaddaya expect us to fly and fight on, Ace?” Maverick chimed in on the flight’s channel while he closed the gap between himself and a lone Hurricane trying to find its squadron mates. “Fumes instead of JP-8, or bad thoughts rather than missiles? Neither one’s gonna be worth a bucket of spit when the engines flame out or the triggers go dry! We have to bingo and push the reserve planes to get their asses in gear!”

 

Zephyr climbed out over the stricken airbase and crossed the main runway upside down, to try to assess how badly the Rattler had beaten the field. “Sorry, guys,” he said into the flight’s channel. “They pasted us but good. That Rattler I tagged was packing Durandals. He plopped six of ‘em right smack on the center of the runway.”

 

Ace reached for one of his data sheets that was clipped to a kneeboard over his flight suit. “Zephyr,” he said. “What about the auxiliary runway? The one marked closed at both ends that the locals were lengthening?”

 

Zephyr rolled into a lazy turn and spotted the auxiliary runway, which was marked with the standard symbol for a closed field. Large white X’s were painted at either end, but the cement and asphalt strip was still intact.

 

“Ace,” the Marine pilot reported. “Nobody touched the aux. runway. We’ll only be able to land one by one, and we’ll need every spare inch of it. Add to that the fact the main tower’s been shot to shit and approach control comms is likely to be out. But if you guys have the brass balls to try it, at least we’ll have another fifteen or twenty minutes of loiter time before we have to land or punch out.”

 

“Okay, Joes,” Ace said. “Listen up. If you’re bingo and can’t handle the aux. runway, clear out now and regroup at Ali Al-Salem. Take on gas and weapons and get right back into the fight. Everyone who can stay, form up on me at Angels One, and let’s go hunting for Hurricanes!”

 

None of the pilots wanted to run for Kuwait. They had fuel, some ammo, and a runway to go home to. “YO, JOE!” they shouted in unison, each pilot angling his fighter up or down to reach a flight level of 1,000 feet.

 

“Roger that,” Ace said. “Let’s give ‘em everything we have left!”

 

***

 

Wild Weasel banked around a smoking Saudi F-15S interceptor as it careened downward towards the desert in a lazy spiral. He watched as the pilot ejected and the white canopy of his parachute unfurled before turning back towards Hafr-al-Batin.

 

The veteran Cobra pilot scanned his radar screen and digital status display to find that out of the sixty Hurricane and sixteen Rattler jets that launched in the raid, more than thirty-five of the Hurricanes had been shot down or driven away with heavy damage. All of the Rattlers except his own were gone and only one out of the fifteen had successfully dumped its ordnance on the air base before its destruction.

 

At least ten of the Hurricane pilots had turned yellow, and the cowards left the furball only to be decimated by American and Iraqi low-altitude air defenses along the border. The Cobra-led Iraqi gunners had scored eight of the shootdowns on the retreating planes, since the officers in charge of the units rightly suspected the pilots were being disloyal.

 

The Cobra forces had made a good accounting of themselves, scoring individual victories against American and British interceptor patrols and the handful of Saudi jets that scrambled into the fray. A good dozen F-15’s and Tornadoes had fallen prey to the Hurricanes’ weapons.

 

However, the Joes still were on top. The nine Joe combat pilots who got off the ground accounted for more than three-quarters of the Cobra planes downed. Each one was probably an ace already from the number of kills the flight had scored. Although Wild Weasel couldn’t tell on his screens which of his force’s shootdowns were at the hands of Ace’s flight, he knew they were the ones systematically chopping through his formations. The fluidity of their dangerous and gutsy movements and teamwork made the Joe pilots easily recognizable from the lesser-experienced, Allied interceptor drivers.

 

“Attention, all elements!” Wild Weasel called out on the Strike channel. “All surviving fighters are to regroup on me at Angels One. We’re going to tag that air base and accomplish Cobra Commander’s orders. Even if we have to punch out over the field and put our planes into the runways and buildings, we will not go home without inflicting serious damage on the Joes! Continue the attack at all costs! COBRA!”

 

***

 

“Angels One”

1,000 feet over Hafr-al-Batin Air Base

1120 hours, local time

 

“Tally ho!” Mud-Mover yelled. “This is Wicked One-Zero-Seven. Bandits! Bandits! They’re all going for the base!”

 

“Okay, that’s it,” Ace said. “They’re making a final push to take out the base! Dump all unnecessary stores and break the enemy group up! We have to stop them here!”

 

The Joe planes dove individually towards the Cobra planes, which were converging into one large group for the final run-in to the air base. Wild Weasel’s Rattler took the lead, its boxy and squared-off shape a stark contrast to the sleek, almost sculpted look of the Hurricanes.

 

All of the Joe fighters were down to gun ammo, having used up their handfuls of air-to-air missiles. Many of the Saudi planes that had scrambled took off without any missiles at all, and were already on the run for Ali Al-Salem Air Base in Kuwait to re-arm. The Allied pilots that had broken off were lucky the Cobras weren’t out to wipe the skies with them, otherwise their retreats would’ve been deadly.

 

The Joes grouped themselves by aircraft type, so that they could effectively cover each other. Ace, Slipstream and Ghost Rider’s F-22A Raptors formed a rough triangle shape as they knifed into the assembling Hurricanes, firing short bursts from their 20mm cannons as they attacked.

 

Maverick, Sky-Striker and Cool-Hand banked their trio of X-35 JSF fighters to form a line between the Cobra elements and Hafr-al-Batin. Zephyr, Dogfight and Mud-Mover dropped their F/A-18E Super Hornets in behind the Joint Strike Fighters, in order to clean up any stragglers.

 

“Here they come,” Maverick said. “Keep steady on the sticks, boys, and take ‘em nose-on! They’ll spread out like scared turkeys!”

 

“We’re right behind you, Maverick,” Zephyr said, checking the ammo counter on his HUD. With only one hundred fifty rounds out of his load of 400 left, he hoped his supply would hold out before a Cobra put him into the dirt. He glanced left and right at the gray shapes of his wingmen and figured that all of them were short on rounds.

 

“Wild Weasel!” one of the surviving Hurricane flight leaders called out with fear. “The enemy is diving on us from six o’clock! I just spotted them coming out of the sun! We’re sitting ducks!”

 

“They’re also lined up in front of us, to steer us clear of the base,” Wild Weasel shot back. “Nobody will break formation until I say so! We’re hitting that airfield with everything we have left! No exceptions! I won’t tolerate any more cowardice from you assholes! ATTACK NOW!”

 

“This is it,” Ace said, scanning his radar screen briefly. “The bandits are going in hard! Let’s fight ‘em off, Joes!”

 

The Raptors dove into the loose cluster of black Cobra planes, spitting short bursts of fire and dropping below the enemy group as their shots struck home. Smoke began to billow from a few lucky hits, but the Cobra jets stayed true on their course.

 

Yanking back to point their noses up at the bellies of the enemy planes, Ace’s section tried again. Their guns chattered, kicking trails of smoke around the gas vents under their noses until the weapons finally went dry.

 

“I’m out,” Slipstream reported. “No bullets left.”

 

“Same here,” Ghost Rider said. “I’m dry.”

 

“Okay, then,” Ace said. “That’s it for us. Maverick, it’s all up to you guys. We’re bugging out for home.”

 

Black puffs of smoke and powerful explosions rocked the Joe and Cobra planes as the ground defenders desperately fired into the air, under orders to stave off the enemy attack at all costs when the planes came into range.

 

Maverick wheeled his plane over sideways to avoid a Stinger missile as it flew by before keying his microphone. “You got it, Ace, We’re gonna stay and stomp on ‘em as long as we can! Range is one mile, a thousand-plus knots closure!”

 

One by one, the Joe planes slashed into the Cobra formation, firing as they went. The ground defenses scored a few choice hits, bringing down three Hurricanes with their short-range missiles and even clipping one of Wild Weasel’s wings with a high-powered volley of 40mm.

 

When the Joes and Cobras joined, somehow the attacking jets’ ECM gear fouled the Joe pilots’ radio communications with their AWACS support. Maverick strained to listen to Quarterback 307’s messages over static which was growing louder and louder.

 

“They’re fucking up our comms, Joes,” Maverick called out on the inter-plane frequency. “AWACS has gone off the air!”

 

“We don’t need AWACS,” Zephyr said, firing nearly point-blank into the twin tails of a Hurricane in front of his nose. “We can see all the bandits right here!”

 

“I’m dry,” Mud-Mover reported, pulling his Super Hornet into a rolling turn. “I’ve gotta bug out!”

 

“Same here,” Dogfight said. “Cover us while we turn for home.”

 

“Good luck guys,” Zephyr said, his trigger finger wavering until his eyes gauged that he could get in a clean shot. “We’ll keep them off you.”

 

Streaks of cannon fire crisscrossed the sky as the Joe and Cobra fighters fought on doggedly. As each plane ran out of ammo or its fuel became critically low, the pilots broke off.

 

One or two Hurricanes plowed straight into the ground when their pilots remained true to Wild Weasel’s orders to stay on the attack no matter what. Since they had no fuel left to cook off, the airplanes simply succumbed to gravity and smeared themselves across the desert floor, taking their pilots’ lives with them.

 

The tactical radio channels the Joes used to communicate with AWACS and other interceptor units suddenly went from static to a clear voice message. Maverick listened in as he dove for the deck to turn back towards the Cobras.

 

“... This is Dambuster Three-zero-zero, group leader for the _U.S.S. Flagg_. I have thirty-six F-18’s and twenty Sky Strikers looking for blood. Can any friendlies respond?”

 

“This is Wicked One-zero-four,” Maverick said. “G. I. Joe section leader. We’re still engaged with roughly a dozen enemy planes, CAG. My guys are bingo fuel and guns dry.”

 

“Dambuster Three-zero-zero to Wicked One-zero-four. We’re here to take over. Don’t worry, Joes, we’ll stop ‘em cold!”

 

Maverick looked up into the light blue sky above the air battle and saw the _Flagg’s_ entire air wing formed up in squadrons, diving down to engage the Cobras. “You pilots are a sight for sore eyes, Dambuster!” he said. “We’re bugging out for home!”

 

“Copy that, One-zero-four,” the _Flagg’s_ CAG said. “Okay boys, tally-ho! Enemy bandits, at ten o’clock low. Let’s smoke ‘em!”

 

As the reserve fighters swept into the Cobra formation, finally decimating the attack force to the point that Wild Weasel had to call for a retreat, the Joes began to line up on the approach to the Hafr-al-Batin auxiliary runway.

 

Almost running on fumes, each plane descended towards the heavily damaged base carefully, barely above the trees that surrounded the airfield perimeter. Only the most skilled pilots had a remote chance of safely putting their planes down on the short, unimproved auxiliary runway, which had last been used to operate propeller-driven liaison planes and civil aircraft in the late forties.

 

The gray birds of prey leveled off with each Joe pilot fighting his own controls to stay aloft just long enough. One by one, the elite jet jockeys brought their planes onto the deck, running them the full length of the old runway before turning them onto a broad, empty apron where their jet engines finally gave out from lack of fuel.

 

After all the Joe aircraft had touched down, the pilots started to climb out of their cockpits. Although there were still sounds of gunfire in the distance and the occasional secondary explosion, the whine of Cobra fighters didn’t sound over their heads.

 

Some of the pilots were truly elated that they had made it through the pitched battle and gotten back home without bailing out. Laughing and smiling, they traded handshakes and congratulations for a job well done.

 

***

 

Baghdad outskirts

Cherubs Eight (800 feet AGL)

1200 hours, local time

 

A warning light on Swansong’s navigation panel began to blink as the Super Hornet flew past its final programmed waypoint. Major Levinson clicked off the navigation program and her fingers danced on the numeric keypad between the three main MFD’s, as she programmed her exit route into the flight computer.

 

“I’ve reached the initial point,” she said into her mic, logging her voice instantly on the fighter’s flight recorder. “Arming weapons. I have an overhead shot of Camp Al-Shu’a, and plan on making three passes. The first one will confuse the camp defenses and the second will just be a carpet run on the surface areas. The third will be the bunker buster drop right on the main structure.”

 

Swansong flipped the Master Arm switch on her weapons panel to its on position and pushed in a pair of circuit breakers that tested the system. When they popped out automatically, she knew everything was set. She moved the weapon selector on her control stick to “GUN” and pulled the trigger lightly. When she felt the vibration of the 20mm gun in the nose releasing the short burst she had fired, Swansong felt confident she would be able to get the job done.

 

“My pickle is hot, and auto-pilot is off,” she said into the cockpit recorder. “I’m turning into the attack. Fifteen miles to target.”

 

***

 

Camp Al-Shu’a

Cobra Garrison / Super Gun Construction Site

1210 hours, local time

 

Despite the damage done by the Joes’ raid of some days prior, the Super Gun construction site was once again in full operation, as the small army of Iraqi laborers prepared to change shifts under the watchful eyes of the Cobra garrison security force. Vipers, Cobra Troopers and Desert Scorpions roughly handled the civilian workers, treating them more like slaves than allied civilians. The soldiers took repeated head counts and moved the workers around in thin, orderly lines, to keep them under as much control as possible.

 

A small communications-electronics shack, part of the temporary surface facilities the Cobras had in place while their subterranean command post was being finished, stood off to one end of the camp, festooned with antennas and a radar dish. Inside, a small crew of Techno-Vipers and Tele-Vipers normally monitored routine radio traffic and watched the multi-mode Pulse-Doppler ground and air surveillance radar.

 

The duty radar operator, a rather sleepy Techno-Viper, rubbed his eyes as he watched the sweep arm of the radar going around his circular display. For him, the day had been boring as usual. Most Cobra and Iraqi aircraft gave Camp Al-Shu’a a wide berth, since it was deep inside an area of restricted airspace, as determined by Cobra and the central government.

 

With an entire regiment of Cobra forces arrayed around Baghdad just to the camp’s northeast, the camp’s own radar was needed more to prevent any further incursions by ground-based elements rather than aircraft. Priority for the system’s installation had been given by Major Bludd after the Joe penetration that resulted in heavy damage to the incomplete command post and a temporary shutdown of their secret computer relay center.

 

The Techno-Viper looked around for the signal shack’s air conditioning control, intending to turn the room temperature down. He had noticed a heat warning lamp on one of the radio boards and didn’t want to risk burning out the equipment. As he rolled his chair away from the radar screen, he missed a soft beep when the sweep line passed over Swansong’s approaching Super Hornet.

 

Unable to find the remote control for the commercial-grade air conditioning unit, the Techno-Viper parked his rolling chair under the cooling vent and cranked up the dial to the coldest possible setting. He leaned back and relaxed under the cool blast of air, opening a bottle of water to take a refreshing drink.

 

Just as the Techno-Viper was settling in to enjoy the change in temperature, the duty signals officer stomped his way into the shack. When he came in from outside, the blast of hot desert air was very perceptible, and drew the radar operator’s attention.

 

It was obvious when the door was slammed shut that the duty signals officer wasn’t happy. He scanned the room with sharply knitted eyebrows and an angry scowl under the Cobra-issue facemask that he wore to keep the desert dust out of his lungs.

 

“What the hell’s going on in here?” the officer bellowed. “You, Techno-Viper, where’s the rest of the signals staff?”

 

“They were called into the command post, sir,” the Techno-Viper lazily replied. “Some joker on the midnight shift screwed up the wiring on the internal communications junction box and our guys had to go figure out what went wrong.”

 

“That’s just ducky, Corporal,” the officer mumbled, stalking around the signals shack. He swished his hand over the empty desks and workstations, angrily tossing the neat piles of printouts and recorded messages onto the floor. “Why isn’t anyone decoding and delivering these dispatches in a timely manner?” he growled to no one in particular. “Major Bludd is expecting results! These communiqués must be answered promptly so Baghdad doesn’t get concerned about a lack of progress!”

 

“Not my job, sir,” the Techno-Viper yawned.

 

“You fucking ingrate!” the officer bellowed, grabbing the Techno-Viper’s uniform and dragging him, still in his chair, back to his station. “If you’re not going to keep this damn shack running on your own, you could at least look like you’re manning your station...”

 

The officer’s voice trailed off when he saw the single blip coming in from the uninhabited desert zone southwest of the camp. The Pulse-Doppler radar displayed the datum’s characteristics, such as speed, altitude and direction of travel. The bogey was coming right for them.

 

The duty signals officer flew into a rage, drawing his service automatic in a flash. “What’s going on with this bogey?” he demanded, slamming the Techno-Viper’s faceplate into the radar display. “Why haven’t you done anything about it? It’s almost inside our defensive envelope!”

 

The Techno-Viper gazed at the blip through hazy eyes and his helmet’s cracked faceplate. His mind reeled – he hadn’t seen the blip. There were no contacts at all the whole morning, not even an expected training flight of MiG-29UB’s from Saddam International Airport, northwest of the camp. His lips moved as his brain searched for an excuse, but he couldn’t get any words out.

 

The duty signals officer shoved the recalcitrant Techno-Viper to the floor and emptied his automatic into the trooper before turning to a microphone and keying the public address system.

 

“Sound the alarms!” the duty signals officer cried out from inside the communications shack. “There’s a low flying contact on our Pulse-Doppler! Alert all defenses for inbound air threat!” He pounded his fist on a large red plunger button that activated the emergency alert system.

 

Alarm horns wailed across the breadth of the camp, causing the Cobra security force to spring into action. After the horns died out, the officer in the communications shack spoke again over the site’s public address system.

 

“All Cobra troops, take up defensive positions!” the duty signals officer said. “We have an aerial contact within ten miles of the camp! Prepare for incoming attack!”

 

Vipers and Desert Scorpions assigned to the camp’s perimeter defenses scrambled into zigzag trenches and fighting positions, brandishing all the weapons they could carry. In the camp’s motor pool, Stinger jeeps and Ringneck APC’s started up, as their operators prepared to support the ring of ASP 35mm air defense guns being loaded and manned by Flak-Viper gunners.

 

The handful of Iraqi military observers on site, and hordes of civilian laborers that had been pressed into service by Cobra, scattered at the sound of the air raid horn, seeking any cover that they could find. Many of them crowded into the ramshackle wooden barracks buildings they had been provided for quarters and cowered under furniture, overturned bed racks, or each other.

 

Nervously, the Cobra defenders scanned the sky with their eyes and the targeting scopes of their weapons, waiting for a sign that the attack was coming.

 

***

 

Swansong followed her planned attack checklist by the numbers. Because she was a veteran pilot, one of Israel’s best ground-pounders, she didn’t take any chances.

 

Her Master Arm switch was on. She used her thumb on a button that was built into the Hands-On-Throttle-And-Stick system (HOTAS) to page through the Hornet’s stores list. Every weapon that she wanted to drop on the camp was marked on the graphic and had passed the signal test from the onboard weapons firing computer.

 

“Cleaning up for action,” Swansong whispered into her flight recorder. She checked the drop tanks to make sure they were emptied of fuel, and then blew the explosive bolts that kicked them free of her plane. She felt a slight jolt and a barely perceptible increase in lift and speed when the bulky tanks fell away.

 

Major Levinson switched the large center MFD over to the view of her FLIR/LLTV and laser-targeting unit, which looked forward from below her nose radome. The gritty grayscale picture panned slightly from side to side as Swansong adjusted her flight heading, and a green bracket, superimposed on the picture, grew and shrunk until it turned into a solid box around the cluster of utility structures inside the camp perimeter.

 

“Looks like that’s the power and plumbing for the whole camp,” Swansong noted out loud. “Guess that’s as good a target as any for the JSOW.”

 

Swansong thumbed the button on her joystick that selected the centerline JSOW launcher, and a red box flashed around the AGM-154 on her stores list. “JSOW is armed, and target is locked on and illuminated,” she said. “Missile away!”

 

With a couple of popping sounds and a loud whoosh under her fuselage, Swansong’s JSOW dropped away from its pylon and sped off towards its target.

 

***

 

1212 hours, local time

 

The air raid horns and klaxons throughout Camp Al-Shu’a died out as the garrison’s troopers manned their positions. Grim Flak-Vipers tracked the twin 35mm gun barrels of their fixed ASP emplacements through the sectors of airspace each one was assigned. Backing them up were the members of the lightly mechanized camp security force, mounted in missile-armed Stinger jeeps, versatile STUN assault vehicles and Ringneck armored personnel carriers bristling with deadly 90mm dual-purpose guns.

 

An eerie silence fell over most of the camp, as the troopers fell quiet and watched the sky from their trenches, vehicles and fighting positions. Only a few normal camp sounds continued, primarily the mechanical buzzing and whirring of the equipment in the cluster of camp outbuildings and the large generating, HVAC and water pumping plants that formed the utilities complex.

 

Then, all of a sudden, the high-pitched whine of an air-breathing rocket motor approached overhead. As the soldiers registered the new sound and moved to either crouch behind cover or track its origin and direction, it was already too late.

 

Approaching at nearly four hundred knots, the AGM-154 JSOW had dropped to treetop level after being released from the Super Hornet and skimmed the rolling slopes of the sand dunes before popping up to hit its target. The missile slammed right into the power generating plant and its two hundred pound fragmentation warhead exploded, blasting the electrical plant, main cooling tower for the underground structure, and water pumping station to millions of tiny bits of flying shrapnel and rubble.

 

With the JSOW impact came chaos for the Cobra troopers and Iraqi laborers on the ground. The explosion’s blast concussion was enough to flatten a number of soldiers in the closest defensive positions. A handful of Techno-Viper engineers were caught in the impact zone and atomized instantly. The resulting shock wave of the blast injured many more around the camp as a banshee sound radiated at Mach speed in all directions, shattering unprotected eardrums as it went.

 

When the lights and ventilation went out in the sub-levels of the site, the crews of workers and guards underground scrambled blindly for the exit stairwells, panicked by the rumble of the explosions far above. By the time the emergency floodlight system kicked in, the bulbs were obscured by gray smoke that was flowing back through the sub-level vents without the fans running to extract it. Even the most staunchly loyal Vipers, posted at the stairwell doors with loaded rifles and orders to shoot deserters from the work details, clamored to escape the cold, concrete depths.

 

As the initial destruction of the JSOW strike settled, Swansong screamed overhead in the dark shape of her gray Super Hornet. She focused on the plume of black smoke and secondary fires rising from the damaged utility complex and made out the squat, squared-off shape of the Super Gun site and its long barrel trench.

 

Swansong counted off the seconds to herself instead of watching the bombsight pipper on her HUD. When she was ready to drop, she keyed her flight recorder and whispered the mission time into her microphone. “Bombs away,” she said. “Bombs away.”

 

Major Levinson pulled hard on the joystick trigger, feeling the nose of the Super Hornet rise as each release bolt sprung free from the quartet of 2,225 pound GBU-31 “Joint Direct Attack Munitions” (JDAM) bombs. The weapons fell away from the wing racks in pairs, their stabilization fins ratcheting out automatically and steering the bombs into a slight spin as fuse penetrators extended from each bomb’s nosecap.

 

Swansong jerked the nose of her fighter up and shoved the throttle forward, all the way to the stops, engaging zone five on her afterburners. The Super Hornet rocketed straight up into the clouds, as the four JDAMs slammed hard into the desert floor and upper surface of the main bunker structure.

 

Most of the soldiers on the surface stayed down under any cover they had available. A few Flak-Vipers around the most remote positions of the camp tried to track Swansong, firing a few futile bursts from their ASP guns into the air.

 

The GBU-31’s drilled themselves through the upper layers of steel-reinforced concrete and ripped through the thinner interior floors that separated the sub-levels. After punching through three or four solid layers, the penetrator fuses finally triggered the bombs and they exploded.

 

Common knowledge suggests that a firecracker, which explodes in someone’s open hand, will typically burn the hand. However, one that explodes inside someone’s closed fist could tear the hand off completely.

 

The theory behind the GBU-31 penetrators was the same. When the bunker-busting ordnance exploded, the thick concrete walls contained and magnified the blast effect of the bombs, completely destroying the inside of the subterranean complex. Eventually the pressure inside became too great for the weakened upper roof to contain, and it burst outward in a cloud of fire and debris.

 

Swansong rolled her Super Hornet over and banked into a level turn in order to return to the scene of her attack and assess the damage. As she leveled off, even at some three thousand feet above the camp, she could see the great conflagration her GBU-31’s had caused.

 

“I see a major detonation and numerous secondary explosions,” Swansong recorded in her Hornet’s black box. She pushed forward on her joystick to lower the nose of her fighter towards the camp. “I’m going back down for a full BDA.”

 

***

 

Cobra Temporary Command Center

Presidential Palace, Baghdad, Iraq

1220 hours, local time

 

“Cobra Commander!” a nervous, young Tele-Viper called out. “Sir! We have a problem! Camp Al-Shu’a went off the air and security units of the Iraqi Republican Guard in the southwestern city limits have reported a large smoke cloud and sounds of explosions from their general direction!”

 

“Put all local units on alert!” Cobra Commander exclaimed. “Summon Destro and the Baroness from wherever they’ve been hiding! Order the commanders of the 104th Regiment and all advisors in the Capital Zone to step up their units’ readiness status! Get a patrol of heavy armor and APC’s out there for a spot report! Move it!”

 

“We’re keying up a Cobra imaging satellite, Commander,” a Techno-Viper reported, punching rapidly at a computer terminal station and piping the feed to a large situation board that hung from the command center wall.

 

When the image feed from the satellite came through the command center, Cobra Commander scratched his head as he tried to make out what the satellite’s synthetic-aperture imaging system was picking up. All the satellite showed was sweeping clouds of dust and smoke, obscuring much of the camp from view.

 

“Baghdad International Ground Control Intercept has signaled that a flight of two MiG-29 fighters has scrambled and four patrols of Hurricanes and Rattlers are being diverted to overfly the capital,” Major Bludd reported after shoving a Cobra Air Operations Officer out of his way. “Do you want me to go back to the garrison and see what happened, Commander?”

 

Cobra Commander was furious and spun towards Major Bludd, striking him angrily in the head with the back of his balled fist. “What the fuck do YOU think, Major? Security for that camp was your responsibility! Get your ass out there and take charge, or else you’re going to wish you were caught in the American attack instead of reporting to me here! GO! RIGHT NOW!”

 

Major Bludd gulped, massaging a thickening red welt on the side of his jaw. He replied softly, “As you command, Leader.” The Major scurried out of the command post with a pair of scared Neo-Viper officers in tow.

 

***

 

Over Camp Al-Shu’a

1220 hours

 

Bursts of black smoke puffed around Swansong’s Super Hornet as she drove her fighter towards the deck to make one final pass over the Cobra garrison. The former Israeli attack pilot could tell that the enemy cannon fire was unguided; it was a feeble effort on the part of the surviving ground defenders to chase off what they perceived as a multi-aircraft “Alpha” strike.

 

Swansong did turn on her secure scrambler, a special transponder that the Joes had fitted to all their aircraft, and broke radio silence. She tuned it into a known Israeli Air Force and MOSSAD intelligence unit frequency, and fired off a very brief coded voice message. Making sure to disable her onboard voice recorder, she said in Hebrew, “This is Swansong. Stand down Joshua. The problem has been contained.” Then she silenced her radios once more.

 

When Camp Al-Shu’a came back into sight, columns of smoke dotted the desert surface where the camp’s neat perimeter once stuck out in the stark and empty area. The utility plant continued to burn, as stockpiles of generator diesel and nearby fuel and ammunition dumps cooked off and ignited the flimsy wooden barracks buildings closest to the impact zone.

 

Without operable water and foam pumps, or access to a nearby stream or river, the surviving members of the camp’s fire protection crews could only stand idly and watch the camp burn to the ground.

 

The blast waves had overturned a number of light Cobra vehicles, making the short rows of parked motor pool equipment look like a child’s unkempt toy box. Armored equipment and heavy construction vehicles had crumpled under the weight of falling chunks of concrete rubble that geysered up from the main complex after the bombs went off.

 

In the main construction site, the underground complex had collapsed in onto itself after the force of the bombs’ explosion had thrown much of the solid materials in all directions. The protruding tube-shaped assembly that was the beginning of the Cobra Super Gun barrel had been squashed and partially buried by soil from the excavated trench from which it angled out.

 

Chaos reigned on the ground. Some heroic souls braved the fires and smoke to try their hand at locating a buddy they thought was trapped someplace inside. Others simply shook their heads or ran aimlessly screaming. Some of the officers, unable to hear other soldiers or give effective orders without shouting over the hellish noise, were freaking out and simply shooting at everyone they saw in close proximity, calling them traitors for running away.

 

To Swansong, much of the human cost of the raid was being played out like she was watching a colony of small black ants trying to survive their mound being overturned by a gardener’s spade. They seemed not to scatter under her Super Hornet’s belly when she punched up to full military power and blasted past the camp. She was content to know that killing off some Cobras and Iraqi workers and wrecking the Cobra base saved the region from a more dangerous nuclear holocaust at the hands of the panicked Israeli government.

 

A high-pitched warble tone sounded in Swansong’s ears and red LED’s lit up on her radar warning receiver board, indicating an airborne threat. Visual prompts also blinked on her HUD, warning the pilot to take evasive maneuvers. Checking her AWG-9 long-range radar, she found the cause – A pair of MiG-29’s were taking off from nearby Saddam International Airport.

 

The incoming fighter interceptors were her cue to go home. She cranked up her radar jamming pods to maximum strength, nosed over until her altitude was below eight hundred feet, and then watched her wing tank fuel gauges as she enabled her egress course navigation program.

 

***

 

“Rubicon Leader” and “Rubicon Two”

Iraqi Air Force MiG-29 patrol

Over Camp Al-Shu’a

 

The sky looked peaceful and the desert expanses untouched at first, when the MiG-29 fighters of Rubicon Flight went ‘wheels-up’ from Saddam International’s main runway. The pilots could only discern an intermittent blip on their radar scopes and were mostly relying upon cues from their Ground Control Intercept radar station to find the Allied intruder aircraft.

 

Cobra Commander had patched his command center directly into the GCI frequency, in order to speak with the Strato-Viper flying the lead MiG-29 and his Iraqi wingman. As soon as the pilots reported that they were off the ground, the Commander was shouting for them to fly over Camp Al-Shu’a and give him a damage report.

 

While Rubicon Two orbited above and scanned for the intruder aircraft, Rubicon Lead dove for the deck and keyed his radio mike. “Rubicon Lead to Command. It’s a real mess down there. Looks like the garrison took it in the guts and screwed the pooch in the process. I can see structural collapses and uncontrolled fires spreading throughout the enclosed areas. I can’t take a headcount from up here, but I’d bet dollars to donuts that the body count is high.”

 

***

 

Cobra Temporary Command Center

1225 hours, local time

 

“Son of a bitch!” Cobra Commander swore angrily, stomping around the confines of his command post without caring who heard his ranting or who he slammed out of the way. “It was all a double-feint! They attacked the palace to get me to launch fighters against the border! Then they snuck a strike under our noses while our planes were tied up in the attack. They gave up a few fighters and an unmanned aerial vehicle in order to take out Camp Al-Shu’a and a couple wings’ worth of my front-line aircraft!”

 

“All told, Commander, it was a superbly calculated risk,” Destro said from the command center’s entrance door. The Cobra principal and international weapons dealer’s voice was cold and metallic. His demeanor was steady and unaffected by the goings-on that had agitated Cobra Commander so much.

 

“Of all my followers, you would be the first to sing the fuckin’ praises of our enemy, Destro!” Cobra Commander crowed. “Where the hell have you been anyway? Perhaps your “superior” tactical mind might have picked up on this if you were around to pay attention to the events!”

 

“I was... preoccupied, Commander,” Destro replied slowly, “...handling the day to day logistical needs of your little venture here.”

 

“Oh, I get it,” the Commander wailed. “You were off schtupping your personal piece of tail, the Baroness, while the Joes pulled off this so-called “master stroke” of yours. That’s it exactly!”

 

Destro, not one to lose his temper easily, especially around the Commander’s buffoonery, instantly reached out with his large hand and wrapped his fingers loosely around the Commander’s throat. None of Cobra Commander’s protective detail, or the other Cobras in the command center, lifted a finger to challenge the tall Scotsman.

 

“You will speak respectfully of the Baroness, Commander!” Destro growled. “Or else I shall kill you where you stand! You sent her to that moldy Iraqi prison to interrogate the Joe prisoners, don’t you remember?”

 

Cobra Commander choked back a wave of bile that was forming in the pit of his stomach. Destro let go of his neck and turned away to cool off rather than let the display continue in front of the troops.

 

“I’m still the Commander, the last time I checked,” Cobra Commander angrily said in between slight coughs. “And I will talk to or about the Baroness any way that I like! She still works for me!”

 

“Bah!” Destro blurted out dismissively, walking out of the command center. “Clean up your own messes then, you egocentric incompetent!”

 

Cobra Commander threw a desk lamp that was conveniently within reach against the closest wall and then moved to the radio mike that was connected to Rubicon Flight. “Rubicon Leader, this is Command,” Cobra Commander said with a seething tone. “Find the Allied attack planes. Find them and destroy them! Make sure the pilots don’t survive the engagement! Kill the Americans that did this!”

 

***

 

Swansong turned her Super Hornet east until she was over the Tigris River, which cut through the middle of downtown Baghdad as it flowed south towards the Persian Gulf. Keeping her plane at an altitude of 800 feet, she punched up full afterburners on the throttle and accelerated to Mach speed.

 

Making a beeline for the Persian Gulf would have been the most logical exit route, but the course would take Swansong over heavily defended areas lousy with Iraqi and Cobra ground troops. She figured that following the course of the Tigris River would only expose her to being observed by the handful of commercial river vessels that operated between Baghdad and the coastal port of Umm Qasr.

 

If she encountered any patrolling Moray hydrofoils or air defense units, Swansong would rely on the Super Hornet’s speed to get her out of danger before the surface weapons could come to bear.

 

Swansong no longer cared about visual detection from the ground. As she increased speed past Mach one, it would take a ground observer some time from the sonic boom of her approach to making a visual identification and then calling it into Cobra’s command network. Any meaningful pursuit would be one vital step behind her.

 

So long as she maintained 800 feet, following the river would be easy. It sure beat trying to fly nap of the earth and watching out for every obstruction along the way.

 

***

 

Motor Vessel _Sea Fang 24_

Cobra Freighter, southeast of Baghdad

1235 hours, local time

 

Standing high atop the Cobra freighter’s flying bridge, some seventy feet above the crashing eddies of the Tigris River, the captain of _Sea Fang 24_ watched the bow of his vessel as it cut through the northbound deepwater channel on its way to the Baghdad port complex.

 

The blue-painted cargo vessel was actually a vintage World War II tank landing ship that had been modified in a Red Chinese shipyard to serve as a coastal freighter. When the commercial owners of the vessel laid her up for sale, Cobra secretly acquired her and modified the _Sea Fang 24_ to be able to handle roll-on roll-off vehicle cargoes. They had modernized the ship on Cobra Island and returned her to her wartime capability of landing equipment at unprepared beaching sites, if necessary.

 

As they steamed upriver, the forty-five Lampreys of the underway crew were jovial as they felt their trip coming to an end. Most of the men and women were in their bunks, relaxing from the long voyage between Cobra Island and Iraq with their consignment of HISS tanks. They had all been pulling double work shifts since the transport wasn’t supplied with a Viper guard detachment to man their defensive battery of three twin 40mm gun stations. Everyone had to pull gunner duty when they weren’t attending to the engine room or keeping the ship on course.

 

The ship’s master was about to get the attention of his bridge radio talker, just inside the door to the _Sea Fang 24_ ’s pilothouse. It was high time to contact Baghdad about the river pilot who was supposed to steer them into the busy cargo port. He was about to reach for the pilothouse’s entry hatch when he heard the sound of an explosion, only fifty times louder.

 

Instead of going for the pilothouse, the captain dove for the bridge deck plates, thinking that someone was firing at them, or that the bow had struck something unexpected ahead. Turning his eyes up from the bridge, the captain watched a dark gray shape race across his field of vision.

 

Although it had two jet engines and twin tails, it surely wasn’t a Cobra Hurricane or an Iraqi MiG-29. None of the other Russian- and French-supplied aircraft in the Iraqi Air Force had a similar configuration.

 

All that the skipper saw was a shadowy apparition of the fighter, but he knew it was too low and too fast to be on a routine patrol. His radio talker came out onto the bridge wing from the pilothouse and helped him to his feet.

 

“Captain, are you all right?” the female Lamprey asked. “That looked like an American Hornet up there!”

 

“I’m fine, thanks,” the captain said. “And I think you’re right. Get someone in Command on the horn and report the sighting!”

 

***

 

Rubicon Flight

Iraqi Air Force MiG-29’s

1245 hours, local time

 

“Command to Rubicon Flight,” Cobra Commander bellowed over the MiG-29’s tactical frequency. “Respond immediately! Where the hell are you two paddy whackers?”

 

“Rubicon Lead to Command,” the Strato-Viper in charge of the section replied. “We’re orbiting south of the city, scanning with our look-down search radars for your American fighters. So far, we’ve turned up zilch.”

 

“Change course immediately and head for the Tigris River, Rubicon Leader,” Cobra Commander said. The iciness in his seething voice was all too easy to hear. “One of our freighters reported a single American F/A-18 flying at treetop level over the Tigris River, heading south from the vicinity of Salman Pak. I don’t have enough air assets along the Kuwaiti border to cut it off, so you have to pursue it all the way by yourselves. Get moving!”

 

Rubicon Leader switched to a private inter-plane channel to talk to his wingman and check their sector maps for a good estimate of where they could cut the Super Hornet off. After thirty seconds of conversing, Rubicon Leader returned to the Command channel.

 

“This is Rubicon Leader, Command,” the Strato-Viper said. “We’re on our way. Order the ground mobile units in the Wasir Sector and around Al Kut to hold fire. We’re going down there to find your Hornet.”

 

Rubicon Leader didn’t get a promise to comply from Command, but it didn’t matter to him at that moment. The pair of MiG-29’s climbed to five thousand feet and increased speed to supersonic, riding hard on the twin after-burning Tumanskiy engines each fighter possessed.

 

“Punch up the speed, Rubicon Two,” Rubicon Leader ordered. “We’ve got a lot of ground to make up for if that Hornet is hugging the river and supersonic. If we don’t find this enemy plane, we might not get home from Al Kut ourselves.”

 

***

 

Al Kut, Iraq

Wasir Province

1315 hours, local time

 

“Rubicon Two to Leader,” the Iraqi wingman said excitedly on the inter-plane channel. “I have a single fast-moving contact! It is already well south of Al Kut and the radar return rate estimates target speed at Mach one point five! That’s got to be our raider!”

 

“But the Americans sent only one?” the Strato-Viper questioned out loud. “Why not an Alpha Strike?” He pondered the situation for a moment and realized that it didn’t matter to Cobra Commander. Rubicon Flight had found something; it was up to them to shoot it down and ask the questions later.

 

“Two from Lead,” the Strato-Viper said. “I’m going into the slot. You back me up. Punch up the speed to close on the contact and stay at Angels Five.”

 

***

 

Swansong keyed her flight recorder as her navigation computer lit up a new course heading and successful passage of the Al Kut waypoint on her exit route. She was suspicious of two radar blips behind her and above, but they were some thirty miles distant and might not have spotted her amid the moving ground clutter along the river.

 

“I’m halfway back to the Gulf,” Swansong said into the Super Hornet’s black box. “I think I might have a couple of aerial pursuers from Baghdad on my heels, but they’re at least thirty miles away and probably waiting for cues from their GCI controller. I’m low enough to get lost in the ground clutter, especially since I’m scaring the shit out of every person on the ground as I fly past.”

 

Swansong took a swig from a small plastic bottle of water that she had stashed in a pocket of her flight suit. “It looks like I’ll be reactivating the radios and calling the _U.S.S. Flagg_ around thirteen forty-five. Hopefully, General Tomahawk won’t be too mad at me for making the cover story all too believable. Perhaps I can find a friend with deep pockets to pay for this Super Hornet after I put her down in the Gulf.”

 

***

 

“Rubicon Leader to Two,” the Strato-Viper said. “Fall back into five mile trail and play pinwheels up here for a bit. I’m going to close the gap.”

 

The sleek MiG-29 belonging to Rubicon Leader nosed down to gain a little speed and bleed off a few hundred feet of altitude as it accelerated to Mach one-point-seven. It began to close the distance to the evading Hornet little by little, and not so much that a watchful pilot would notice on their radar screen.

 

Fortunately for the Rubicon Flight pilots, they had taken off from Saddam International with full fuel tanks, which would allow them to reach Umm Qasr or al-Basra after a dogfight and land on their emergency runways. Both planes carried AA-16 “Air Spike” missiles, a late Russian development of the AIM-54 Phoenix technology that was modified by Cobra into a lethal long-range weapon.

 

Rubicon Leader decided to bide his time. Like a good hunter, he would let his prey get more confident in the success of the escape and then pounce, using the brace of Air Spike missiles on board to teach the interloper a fiery lesson about crossing a Strato-Viper ace.

 

***

 

800 feet above the Al-Basra Channel, Iraq

1330 hours, local time

 

Swansong could see the wide expanse of blue that began the northernmost edge of the Persian Gulf just beyond her Super Hornet’s nose. It looked like she was going to make it without getting the attention of any more of Cobra’s air defenses. They must have been very confused about the rout she had left behind when the aerial defenders of Hafr-al-Batin wiped the skies with the massive Cobra attack.

 

She had been concentrating on keeping her course and didn’t realize that the two blips on her radar screen had spread out from each other, and one was getting within ten miles of her six o’clock. All of a sudden, the threat panel on her radar warning receiver lit up like a Christmas tree.

 

“Shit,” Swansong cursed, glancing at the different flashing LED’s and cues on her HUD. “I’ve awakened the al-Basra fire chain. They must’ve been on alert when the alpha strike kicked off for the air base.” She adjusted the settings on her ECM jammers to throw white noise all over the ground fire chain’s radar frequencies, and didn’t notice that one warning indicator remained lit. It was a rear aspect, long-range air search and acquisition radar; the kind flown on export MiG-29 fighters.

 

***

 

“Rubicon Leader to Command,” the Strato-Viper reported. “I have identified your bandit over the al-Basra air defense fire chain. Standing by to fire.”

 

“It took you long enough, you ingrate!” Cobra Commander shouted over the command channel. Apparently he hadn’t relinquished possession of the microphone back in Baghdad to any of the Air Operations officers yet. “Shoot that American plane down already, God dammit!”

 

“I’m lining the enemy aircraft up, Commander,” the Strato-Viper said coolly. “I’ll have it locked up any second.”

 

“Don’t wait for permission from here, pilot!” the Commander shouted. “All I want to hear is that you’ve killed that fighter!”

 

The Strato-Viper sighed. He had been happy to stay off Cobra Commander’s radar screens and served as a pilot instructor for the Iraqi Air Force jet jockeys while Wild Weasel’s elite wing did all the dirty work. He hoped that his career would continue after the end of the engagement.

 

“I have a good tone,” Rubicon Leader reported. “Two Air Spikes are away.”

 

***

 

Swansong was out over the clear blue waters of the Persian Gulf, “feet wet” as the Navy and Marine pilots would say. She knew the _U.S.S. Flagg_ wasn’t too far away, cruising on patrol beyond the twelve-mile sovereignty limit. The dark shapes of civilian and military ships transiting the area all looked the same to her from such a low altitude.

 

She cringed when she realized that her RWR panel was still flashing a warning. The aerial contacts had fired something at her, but she couldn’t imagine the Iraqi fighters had anything with the range to hit her.

 

Swansong hurried to finish putting the fuses back into her radio panel in order to re-energize her primary communications system. As she jinked to confuse the MiG-29’s radars, she ejected the entire supply of radar-reflecting chaff that was on board the Super Hornet. Streams of tiny aluminum strips floated in the air behind her fighter as the enemy Air Spike missiles rocketed closer and closer.

 

The Super Hornet’s radios came to life as Swansong drove her fighter down to the deck, skimming the plane above the wave tops. Her mind raced to recite the planned script she had devised to cover her presence out in the Gulf.

 

“Strike Two-zero-niner to _U.S.S. Flagg_ ,” she said, waiting for a reply from the _Flagg’s_ Air Boss. “This is Strike Two-zero-niner on red-line ferry flight to the _Flagg_. I am declaring an emergency.”

 

After a short pause, Swansong heard the voice of an air controller aboard Screwtop 912, one of the E-2C Hawkeyes launched by the _Flagg_ when the carrier initiated her defensive emissions control (EMCON) measures, a standard tactic in the combat zone.

 

“Screwtop Nine-twelve to Strike Two-zero-niner,” the controller began. “There is a foul deck at sea and we’re on alert. Juliet-Foxtrot is limiting recoveries of aircraft at this time. State your emergency.”

 

“Screwtop from Strike,” Swansong said. “I have major electrical failures due to red-line problems. During my exit from Hafr-al-Batin, I lost navigation and strayed over enemy airspace. My flight plan wasn’t cancelled so that the aircraft could be evacuated to safety.”

 

“Can you divert or climb to Angels Five to join a tanker?” Screwtop 912 asked.

 

“Negative,” Swansong replied. “I am on the deck and have two enemy MiG’s at long range on my six o’clock. I need to recover or bail.”

 

“Strike Two-zero-niner, this is Screwtop Nine-twelve,” the controller said calmly after taking a long pause for orders from the _U.S.S. Chancellorsville_ , the AEGIS cruiser that handled the _Flagg_ battle group’s air defense umbrella. “Activate your emergency beacon and punch out. We cannot recover your plane. Seahawks are being dispatched to pluck you out of the drink.”

 

Swansong nodded. That was just the reaction she expected. Abandoning her fighter over the Gulf would make General Tomahawk and other members of the brass mad, but it would ensure that Cobra couldn’t get the proof of her covert attack.

 

The _Flagg_ was correctly operating under the assumption that because the air was thick with Cobra planes, the crew wasn’t going to let anything through that could be an enemy attack until their own fighters were returning home.

 

Swansong pulled out a small C-4 charge and detonator, which she attached to the control panel of the plane where the black boxes were stored, after taking out the digital data disk of her flight recordings and slipping it into a protective sleeve in her ejection seat’s rigging.

 

“Strike Two-zero-niner is punching out,” Swansong said, pulling on the pair of rings over her head that activated her ACES II ejection seat. The protective shroud that the rings were attached to shielded her head and face from dangerous splinters, as the explosive bolts fired around the cockpit, cutting free the Hornet’s canopy before a rocket motor in the seat shot her away from the plane.

 

As Swansong’s parachute opened and she drifted away from the Super Hornet, she saw the enemy’s Air Spike missiles explode behind the fighter, knocking it into an uncontrolled spiral. Her self-destruct charge detonated a few seconds afterwards, shredding the classified avionics, flight recorders and radome before the stricken plane crashed into the cool Persian Gulf waters.

 

***

 

The Strato-Viper section leader in charge of Rubicon Flight saw the explosions over the water, but was too high in the clouds to spot Swansong’s parachute. He assumed that his missiles had done her in before she could punch out.

 

“Rubicon Leader to Command,” the Strato-Viper said. “Splash one enemy attack fighter at thirteen-twenty hours. Enemy plane was feet wet and dunked in the Gulf. No chutes sighted. We’re returning to base.”

 

Swansong slipped into the water some fifteen miles south by southeast of the al-Basra Channel, safely out of the way of the main shipping lanes that fed the Iraqi port. As she bobbed in the water, kept afloat by her Navy-designed self-inflating survival vest, she listened closely to the sounds around her. All she needed to hear were the soft beeping of her survival beacon and the throbbing sounds above her of the approaching SH-60B Seahawk rescue chopper. Another mission was accomplished, with gusto.

 

***

 

Somewhere in Baghdad

1430 hours, local time

 

Vehicles circulated along the arteries of the city in a generally good flow, even with the numerous checkpoints and security stops that were set up around the neighborhoods. Patrols moved about the city, made up of Fedayeen militiamen and special Republican Guard troops advised by Cobra soldiers, to conduct random stops and searches. Their constant presence and activity kept the civilian population under control through fear.

 

Dojo whistled softly into the mouthpiece of a boom microphone that he wore in the driver’s compartment of the stolen Cobra BAT carrier. The other members of his ninja team, including Storm Shadow, were safely hidden from view in the large armored troop bay and listened in to his comments over the APC’s intercom.

 

“We’re getting waved through another checkpoint,” Dojo said over the revving of the wheeled carrier’s engine. “It’s like anything painted in Cobra sigils around here wears a “get out of jail free” card on it. If you ask me, it’s tactically unsound.”

 

“Well, we’re surely going to take advantage of it,” Storm Shadow said from the troop bay, cross-checking their position between his TDC and Nunchuk’s escape map. “Just keep driving around the ring road towards the airport. We’re due for our daily check-in with Headquarters.”

 

Storm Shadow keyed his TDC into the HQ network and quietly radioed the Operations Center. After a few moments of electronic handshaking, Breaker’s voice came up on the air.

 

“Helmsman Six to Funny Two. We copy you loud and clear,” Breaker said in his friendly, Tennessee twang. “Stand by one. Funny One is also signing into the network. Prepare to copy mission updates from Brass Hat Six.”

 

Storm Shadow looked at the small digital display on his TDC unit and saw a third unit code light up underneath his and the base station at KKMC. He instantly recognized the unit code as Snake Eyes.

 

“Okay,” Breaker said, “we’re all on-line. Funny One and Two elements, report your status.”

 

Storm Shadow waited to hear the metallic synthesized voice from Snake Eyes’ sound unit over the conferenced-in secure phone connection. He let out a soft breath when he knew Snakes’ team had made it in country.

 

“Funny One reports that we are in the strike zone,” Snake Eyes’ voice synthesizer transmitted, as the silent commando formed the words through his damaged vocal cords. “All of us are intact.”

 

“Funny Two reports that we have arrived in the city as well,” Storm Shadow said. “We encountered and escaped from a Cobra regional command post and had to waylay some new transportation. All eight of us are functional, but there are some slight wounds.”

 

“Roger that,” Breaker said, his voice changing in pitch because of his excitement. “Steeler is with me and coming on the line. Get ready to copy new instructions.”

 

Breaker set his mouthpiece to mute and Steeler’s voice took over the airwaves. “Funny Platoon, this is Steeler. I have a priority flash from Brass Hat Six Actual. We have received a signal from our lost friends, and are tracking it. Crypto and Flint are being held at Saddam Military Prison, roughly west of the city along the approaches to the international airport. We are text-messaging the transponder code to you. Set your GPS tracers to the code and home in on it.”

 

Steeler paused for a moment while Breaker typed at the keyboard of the TDC base station, beaming out the text message with Crypto’s TDC unit code. “Upon localizing the beacon, conduct covert site reconnaissance of their surroundings and devise a method of forced or stealthy entry.”

 

“Aren’t we the rescue party?” Storm Shadow asked.

 

“Negative,” Steeler replied. “Brass Hat Six Actual is running the show from here. We’re sending friends. Your mission is to locate and clear the LZ for our main element’s approach before conducting a search and extraction of our buddies. The big boss wants to make a major impression on the snake population.”

 

“We understand,” Snake Eyes said through his voice unit.

 

“Rendezvous as a unit and stay out of trouble until twenty-three hundred hours,” Steeler added. “And then check back in. We will have final details worked out by then. Good luck. Brass Hat Six is out.”

 

After the signal with Headquarters went dead, Nunchuk programmed his TDC to trace the beacon from Crypto’s communications unit, and a red blip showed up on his GPS display as soon as his unit detected Crypto’s signal.

 

“I have the beacon,” Nunchuk said. “Let’s find a quiet place to meet up with Team One.”

 

***

 

Section Seven

Saddam Military Prison

1600 hours, local time

 

"Okay, everything is in place," the average height, auburn-haired woman said, as she buttoned up the tattered American battle dress that she wore and looked at the chair which was set up in the interrogation room. Another person in a similar desert camouflage uniform, a male with dark hair, sat in the chair with his arms behind his back and bound with metal handcuffs.

 

A Cobra Viper trotted into the interrogation room, carrying a bucket of cold water, which he tossed on the seated man, soaking him to the bone. He then flashed a thumbs-up to another Cobra trooper, a Tele-Viper, who was sitting in the hallway outside the interrogation room with a laptop computer that controlled the room's small closed-circuit television (CCTV) security camera. As the Viper and the auburn-haired woman shuffled out of the room, the lights were turned down to only show shadows within the space, the security camera was turned on and it began to record.

 

***

 

The door to the interrogation room opened from the hall, allowing a share of the outside light to fall inside the room, as the auburn-haired woman walked in and shut the metal door with a clang. The lighting in the room rose a little when the woman flipped one of the light switches on. She moved straight to the chair in the middle of the room, holding a woven terrycloth towel and dabbed at the wet man sitting handcuffed to the plain metal chair.

 

"Oh, Crypto," the woman exclaimed softly. "What did they do to you?"

 

The seated man coughed loudly, as if his lungs had been exposed to a lot of moisture or he had a case of pneumonia. "Lady Jaye - They... they caught me trying to break out. I killed a few of them but didn't make it past the walls." The seated man made another loud string of coughs. Lady Jaye patted his back gently and toweled off his head.

 

"When they got me, they decided to make an example of me," Crypto continued. "I was put in a black body bag that had slits cut into it, and dunked into the prison's waste water system hanging by my ankles."

 

"I'm so sorry, Crypto," Jaye replied, dabbing the towel around his eyes gently and holding his cheeks in her hands. "Why did you try to resist?"

 

"I had to," Crypto said softly. "I had to prove to Flint that we were still loyal Joes. I had to try to get the two of us out of the cell block. I planned on getting free and then coming back for him with more weapons. Together we would've found you and then busted the hell outta here."

 

"Damn it," Jaye replied. "That macho bullshit from Flint is only gonna get us killed. Why did you listen to him? He wasn't willing to start cutting guts out of Cobra troopers himself, and he let you take the lumps for it? Thank God they're keeping me in a different cell block. I'd want to throttle him for being so selfish!"

 

"What do we do now?" Crypto asked.

 

"Why don't you throw the interrogators a bone, and so will I," Jaye answered. "That way, we have some bargaining power. I can ask them to move you to my cell block and we can figure out a plan of action. Let Flint stew in his own juices or stick his own neck out for once."

 

***

 

Lady Jaye spoke to Crypto for a few more moments in hushed whispers that the sound pickups didn't get a complete track of, and then she took Crypto into a soft embrace, which was the cue for the Tele-Viper in the hallway to cut the recording. As the CCTV camera shut off, the Baroness stepped over to the remote terminal and had the Tele-Viper start the recording over from the top.

 

The images were grainy, because of the older black and white video camera mounted in the room with its fish-eye lens that distorted some of the details. The quality of the video, despite being recorded digitally with a high-quality sound pickup and burned onto a DVD for the Baroness to replay, was staged to be unclear. It was all meant to be a part of the deception the Baroness was trying to portray to Flint.

 

"This is perfect," the Baroness said, accepting the DVD disk from the Tele-Viper and dismissing him. "I will have Flint eating out of my hands with this one. It will surely put him over the edge."

 

Crimson Guard Lieutenant Deming emerged from the interrogation room, smoothing out her natural hair and carrying an auburn wig in her hand. She was followed quickly by a Viper who roughly matched the height, build and hairstyle that Crypto had.

 

"Did the video come out right?" Deming asked the Baroness.

 

"Splendidly," Baroness replied. "You played your part to the mark, Lieutenant. It seems you're getting better at portraying Lady Jaye with every performance."

 

"I just hope the information we glean is all worth this putrid game of dress up," Deming said. "At least the day wasn't a total loss. I did get to dunk Crypto and have fun watching him almost drown. The body count after his escape attempt was seventeen, I believe."

 

"They were seventeen lax Cretins that Cobra could do without," Baroness added. "Keep the two of them separated from now on. I'll play this for Flint during our next session."

 

[1] Author’s Notes: Angels and Cherubs are pilot lingo for altitude measurements. Angels Five is equivalent to 5,000 feet up, and Cherubs Five is 500 feet up. Thus Angel = 1,000 feet of altitude, Cherub = 100 feet.

 

And, in case you’re trying to keep score, here’s the list of Joe fighter call signs for the Air Battle of Hafr-al-Batin: (Not that I mentioned them all in the text...)

 

Wicked 101        F-22A Raptor                  Ace (Flight Leader)

Wicked 102        F-22A Raptor                  Slipstream (Section Leader)

Wicked 103        F-22A Raptor                  Ghost Rider

Wicked 104        X-35A Joint Strike Fighter    Maverick (Section Leader)

Wicked 105        X-35A Joint Strike Fighter    Sky-Striker

Wicked 106        X-35A Joint Strike Fighter    Cool-Hand

Wicked 107        F/A-18E Super Hornet          Mud-Mover

Wicked 108        F/A-18E Super Hornet          Dogfight

Wicked 109        F/A-18E Super Hornet          Zephyr

 

Strike 209        F/A-18E Super Hornet          Swansong


End file.
